


Felicity the Vampire Slayer

by KimBug



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, BAMF Felicity Smoak, F/M, John Diggle & Felicity Smoak Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-05-28 18:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimBug/pseuds/KimBug
Summary: Felicity Smoak had a plan: graduate from Starling Prep with honours, go to MIT, start a tech company that will change the world. But that was before a stranger she meets at a bus stop tells her there are vampires out there and she’s the only one who can stop them.A vampire slayer AU based on the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is based on the Buffy movie with Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry, although I do borrow some elements from the Buffy TV show.  
> I also borrow dialogue from both the movie and from Arrow, from time to time.  
> And my high school Felicity is blond (it's an AU, I can do what I want *smiley face emoji*)

It’s dark. The landscape around her is a collection of shadows and shades of grey. She moves through it with speed and precision.

She can feel the sweat gathering at her brow, running down her back. The pounding of her heart sounds loudly in her ears. But she doesn’t stop running. She can’t. If she stops running she’ll lose him, and she needs to finish this. Once and for all.

Her skirt is gathered in her hands to help keep her from tripping. She leaps rocks and tree roots almost instinctively, her reflexes sharp and honed, eyes attuned to the darkness. Branches scrape at her skin as she pushes through the trees. She doesn’t stop.

She can see the lamp light ahead, knows it must be him. If she can catch him off guard, she thinks she’ll have a chance. Still running, she frees a hand to grab a wooden stake from her satchel.

Figures come into view, and even though the dim light presents them only as silhouettes, she knows right away which one she’s looking for, which one is _him._ She judges the distance and, at the right time, pours on speed in preparation to jump. Before she knows it, she’s leaping through the air, and coming down hard on his back. His step waivers but he doesn’t fall, so she clings to his back, raising up her stake and preparing to jab it through his torso with all her might.

Before she can follow through, he shakes her off and she lands on the ground with a thud. He whips around to face her. His blue eyes pierce through the darkness and chill her to the bone.

“I should have known you’d be here,” he says. With a wry smile, he adds, “What would my life be without our song and dance?”

She glares at him with rage in her eyes. The smell of smoke still carries on the wind from the village he razed. She needs to be strong enough to end this, to stop him from ever doing this again.

She leaps to her feet, stake still in hand, and lunges at him again. When he blocks the blow, she kicks him in the stomach hard enough to make him stumble back a step. He reaches for her but she dodges his grasp. Their fight continues. Thrust and parry, action and reaction.

She’s strong, but he’s stronger.

When her back hits the ground again, she knows that it’s over. Before she can recover, a flick of his wrist has her flying through the air. When her back slams into a tree trunk she stays there, hovering a foot off the ground, pinned by his magic. She struggles, bucking and kicking with tired muscles, but gets nowhere.

A few feet away, her nemesis stands almost casually. He takes a minute to brush dirt and leaves from his black suit, sending her a look that his almost more annoyed than angry. From inside his belt he pulls an ornate silver dagger. Its sharp blade glints in the lamplight.

“Let’s get this over with, shall we,” he says almost pleasantly, before his face fills with anger and rage and he rushes at her –

Felicity wakes with a start, flailing limbs struggling to get away from the blankets. It takes her a minute to come back to herself, to realize where she is; it always does after these dreams. She curls her fingers into her soft mattress, reminding herself that she’s safe in her bed in Starling City, not in a dark forest about to be eviscerated or whatever grisly fate awaited her. Her subconscious, at least, always spared her the ugly details.

She’s had dreams of fighting this man, this same man, for almost as long as she can remember. As a child they’d have her scurrying to her parents’ bed, shaking and terrified, but she was never able to properly express them, as if her fear had taken away her normally overactive powers of speech. As she got older, she found that she didn’t want to talk about them. The dreams were too vivid, too real, and she did not want to relive those feelings in her waking hours. It was enough to have to experience them while she was asleep.

Knowing sleep will be elusive now, Felicity turns on her bedside lamp and reaches for her glasses. The digital clock reads 4:47am. Heaving a sigh, she grabs her laptop and powers it up. Before long, she’s wrapped herself up in the world of 1s and 0s. Technology she understands, technology she has learned to control. This is her happy place.

If she’s lucky, the coding will clear her brain and she’ll be able to catch another hour of sleep before she has to get up for school. She turns the light off again around 5:30, but this time it’s the challenges of coding her robotics project that keeps her awake. Eventually, she gives up on sleep altogether and gets up to shower.

She moves quietly around the apartment. It’s not large and her mom is still asleep, her job as a cocktail waitress means she keeps slightly different hours than the majority of the world. Felicity doesn’t fault her for it, she knows her mom works hard to support them. Felicity might have gotten a scholarship for Starling Prep, but there was more to pay for in life than just her tuition. She dons the kilt and jacket that make up her school uniform then brushes her blond hair up into a ponytail. She spends a leisurely half hour munching on a bagel while surfing the internet on her tablet before grabbing her backpack and heading out the door.

The school bus that would take her to campus is still twenty minutes away from arriving, so she opts instead to walk a few blocks to Jitters for a morning latte then hops on the city transit bus that will take her close enough to the school that she can walk the rest of the way. She’s pretty sure she’s the only senior at Starling Prep who doesn’t drive to school in some fancy new sports car that seems to be the obligatory gift for sweet sixteen around here. There’s a steady stream of Audis and Mercedes and BMWs that drive past her, heading through the gates of the private high school. It never really bothered her, not coming from money. She’d earned her place at Starling Prep and she was proud of that. But she didn’t hang out with the rich crowd either. It was one of those social divides that, in her experience, was only bridged by necessary niceties and occasional assigned group projects.

Felicity finishes her latte and tosses the cup in the trashcan just before she enters the school’s foyer. The large space, adorned with exposed brick and dark wood, had wowed her the first time she’d seen it. It had seemed so stately, and was nothing like the concrete block, 1970s era school she’d attended in Las Vegas. It was enough to make the prospect of starting high school in a completely new state bearable, and even exciting. And, all in all, she’s been pretty happy here.

She moves towards homeroom, unsurprised to find her friend and locker neighbour Cisco Ramone loitering in the hall. He leans a shoulder against his closed locker door, facing the opposite end of the hall, their friend Caitlin looking on in amusement. His shirt is untucked underneath his blazer and his dark hair rests on his collar.

“Keeping vigil?” she asks Cisco as she opens her locker, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies in the most unconvincing tone.

“Cisco, are you trying to convince me that you don’t spend extra time in the hallway in the morning just so you can get a glace of Laurel Lance?”

“What?” he says with a degree of shock that is totally unpersuasive. “No. That would be crazy and slightly stalkerish. I am simply stretching my legs before I have to get to class. Haven’t you heard that sitting is the new smoking?”

“He heard that Oliver and Laurel broke up again,” Caitlin supplies, tucking a strand of her long, light brown hair behind her ear. Felicity gives an “Ah,” of understanding.

Cisco has had a crush on Laurel Lance ever since they were in the same study group in tenth grade algebra and, while Laurel has always been friendly with him, it never went any further. Cisco was always quick to blame this on Laurel’s handsome, rich, and popular love interest, Oliver Queen. But Felicity was pretty sure that Cisco was much more comfortable pining over Laurel from afar than he was with the idea of actually dating her. Still, every time Laurel and Oliver were on the outs, and that happened fairly frequently, Cisco would get extra moon-eyed over the pretty brunette who happened to have a locker down the hall from them.

“Well then,” Felicity says addressing him, “since there’s absolutely nothing else occupying your attention, I can tell you about the idea I had for modifying the grasping arm on our robot.”

“Yes, of course, I’d love to hear it,” he says, “but maybe not right now, while I’ve got my standing brain on, but definitely in class when I’m sitting and not devoting extra brain power to this strenuous exercise…” He throws in some side stretches and awkward lunges for good measure.

Felicity laughs. “Ok. Well, you just stay here and take care of …all that, and Caitlin and I will discuss robot parts.”

Hoisting her bookbag on her shoulder, Felicity and Caitlin start talking. Their conversation is fun and easy, and occasionally interrupted by Cisco’s increased silliness for their amusement. Sometimes, like now, it strikes Felicity just how much she likes her life. She wonders if, somehow, it could stay like this forever.

**

The evening sun is shining out over the campus by the time Felicity, Cisco, Caitlin, and their friend Cooper leave the front doors of Starling Prep. The school day had come and gone, but the foursome had stayed late to tinker with “C-4PO”, their affectionate name for their entry for the state robotics competition.

“Because he’s being designed by four brains,” Cisco had said when he came up with the name. Felicity and Caitlin thought it was cute, but Cooper had been less thrilled about naming their project after “a whiny protocol droid.” Cooper, Felicity thought, could take himself too seriously sometimes.

Felicity likes this time of day. Staying late here had never felt like a burden. The campus is empty, but not too empty, with several extracurricular groups making use of the hours. Some days, by the time school had let out, her mom had already left for work, and going home only meant an empty apartment. Here, at least, there are other people.

“I think we should improve the maneuverability,” Cisco says as they bound down the steps. “More control over movement will mean we can get 4PO through the course faster.”

“No,” counters Cooper, pushing is floppy hair out of his eyes, “we need to get the lag out of the response time. That’s what’s slowing him down.”

“Did you see his corners?” Cisco replies. “Those were some wide right turns. I can adjust the range of motion.”

“This is a programming problem,” Cooper says, “not a mechanical one. Fliss?”

Cooper stops in his tracks and turns to her. “Back me up on this,” he says.

Felicity is a little taken aback, but she shouldn’t be. Cooper and Cisco often have what Felicity calls “spirited debates”, and Cooper is always expecting Felicity to be on his side, even if she doesn’t always deliver.

“The competition is still over a month away, we’ve got time to look at both,” she answers, firmly settling herself on the middle ground.

Cooper shoots her a bit of a look, he doesn’t like to lose an argument. But he lets it go.

Felicity met Cooper in her first week at Starling Prep. He was a scholarship student, like her, and every bit as smart. They had a lot in common, he was a fountain of knowledge of classic sci-fi, and it didn’t hurt that she also thought he was very cute. He had a mop of dark hair and a brilliant smile, and she crushed on him pretty fast.

Cooper was her first date, her first dozen dates really. He was her first kiss, and her first trip to second base. She liked a lot of things about him, and she still does. But there’s this cockiness about him, this need to be the smartest person in every room, that she just didn’t jive with. She broke things off with him before the start of junior year, saying she hoped they could still be friends. And they’ve managed that much, with minimal awkwardness.

“Any thoughts on how we’re going to get past the wall obstacle?” Caitlin asks. The course their robot would have to manoeuver was going to include a block wall that the robots would have to, somehow, break through. “Are we going with brute force?”

Cisco is quick to shake his head. “I think C-4PO should have more finesse than that.”

The school doors open behind them and voices enter the yard. They’re loud, and their footstep clod heavily on the steps.

“I don’t think we have time for finesse Cisco,” Cooper pipes in, “it’s really only -“

As the group of loud newcomers moves past them, someone knocks into Cooper and pushes him forward.

“Hey!” Cooper barks. “Watch where you’re going!”

The offender stops mid-stride and turns around. He’s big, he’s not wearing a school uniform, and his highlighted hair is damp. If Felicity had to guess she’d say he just came from football practice. “You got a problem?” he says, leveling his gaze at Cooper.

“I have a problem with ignorant tools who don’t watch where they’re going,” Cooper retorts.

The big guy clenches his jaw. “What did you say?”

Felicity tenses. Mr. Football doesn’t look like he’s backing down. And his friends have stopped too, gathering to watch from a few feet away. She hopes against hope that Cooper’s next remark won’t be a snarky one but, really, she should know better.

“Did you want me to break it down into smaller words so you can understand?” he says.

The next thing she knows, Mr. Football is rushing at Cooper, anger on his face. But before he can get to him, a pair of arms grab him from behind.

“Woah, Max, hang on a minute,” she hears. “You don’t need to do this. Just let it go, man.”

She looks behind the hulking angry man and is a little surprised to see Oliver Queen holding him back, trying to talk him down.

Cooper, however, doesn’t seem to be helping the situation. His angry, and somewhat arrogant, gaze is still locked on Max, and it’s really not serving to deescalate things from a fight she’s 95% certain that Cooper wouldn’t win.

Almost before she realizes it, Felicity steps between them. “You know what,” she starts, voice running a little too fast, “we were just leaving. So whatever _this_ is, will have to wait for another time. Right, guys?”

Her ponytail swishes around her head as she looks from one to angry teenager to the other, addressing them both while she waits for their pissing contest to end. Behind Max, she swears she sees Oliver Queen’s mouth curve into the slightest smile.

“Fine,” says Cooper, turning to the rest of their group. “Let’s go.” When Max turns away too, Felicity finally lets out an exhale.

Before she follows after her friends, she looks to Oliver. “Thanks,” she tells him with sincerity.

“No problem,” he answers. “Max can be a bit of a hot head sometimes.”

“Cooper too,” she admits. “And I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have ended well for him. So, really, thanks.”

“You’re welcome Felicity. Have a nice night.”

With that, Oliver heads off to follow his friends. After a second, she turns in the opposite direction to do the same. She tries not to dwell too much on the fact that Oliver Queen knows her name.

**

Oliver sits on the hood of his car, warm can of beer in his hand. It’s dark, the streetlights barely reaching to where he’s parked in the empty lot. After the near fight at the school, Max had jumped into Oliver’s Porsche and they’d cruised around with the top down. Oliver had hoped Tommy would come along but he bowed out, saying there was some event at Merlyn Global that his dad was insisting he attend. Tommy was a good buffer when Max was around. Oliver liked Max just fine, but he could be a bit aggressive, and Tommy’s good nature tended to mellow things out.

The evening had been pretty uneventful. They’d gotten take out, then washed it down with the remains of a six pack that Oliver had in his trunk. Now they sat in an empty downtown parking lot, crushed beer cans in the backseat

“Why’d you stop me from going after that kid?” Max asks, crumpling the last can in his hand and tossing it back with the rest.

“Oh, I don’t know,” answers Oliver with a bit of attitude, “I thought maybe you’d like not to be suspended.”

Max huffs a laugh. “Since when have we ever cared about getting suspended before?”

Oliver shrugs. “It’s senior year, you wouldn’t want to be left behind while the rest of us go to college, would you?”

“With the amount of money my family gives this school, there’s no way I’m failing,” says Max. Oliver has to admit he has a point. Still, school yard fights seem like something better left in the eighth grade.

“Ah, man, college,” Max says, sounding almost excited. Oliver wonders if the beer is getting to him. “The partying will be so much better, am I right? Hey, let’s hit a club tonight.”

“Nah,” Oliver answers, pouring what’s left of his can onto the pavement. “I’m not feeling it. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

“Nope,” says Max, sliding off the hood to stand in front of the car. “We’re only a couple blocks from Poison and I’ve got a hundred bucks in my pocket that will get us through the door. What do you say Ollie?”

Oliver’s a bit surprised that the prospect of alcohol and meaningless sex isn’t more appealing to him right now. Usually, in the midst of a break-up with Laurel, he goes a little wild before settling back into, somewhat, better behaviour. But this time, he isn’t feeling it. Part of him thinks that, maybe, he’s finally sick of the pattern.

“I’m gonna pass,” he says.

“Your loss,” Max says with nonchalance, already walking away from the car.

“At least let me drive you to the club,” Oliver calls to him, hand on the car door.

“Night Ollie,” Max answers, not even looking back. By the time Oliver’s seated behind the wheel, Max has turned a corner and is out of sight.

**

The walk to the club is quiet. His money gets him in, and a generous tip to the bartender ensures that no questions are asked. He gets a beer then scopes the room.

He’s very pleased when she comes up to him, dark red lips and curves in all the right places. When she dances, he dances. When she kisses him, he kisses back. When she leads him across the club, he goes willingly.

When she pulls him into a backroom, he’s excited.

When she bites into his neck, he’s terrified.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the 1992 Buffy movie with Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry, but I do borrow elements from the Buffy TV show.  
> I also borrow dialogue from both the movie and Arrow, from time to time.  
> And in my universe high school Felicity is blond.

Felicity shifts on the red, vinyl covered bench and licks the salt from her fingers. She reaches for a napkin to clean herself off before grabbing her milkshake with one hand and her pencil with the other. She shifts her attention from her food, a Big Belly Buster meal most of which she’s already devoured, to her last few remaining calculus problems. She’s made herself at home in this restaurant booth, textbooks and papers strewn across the Formica table top. She sets herself up in this Big Belly Burger at least once a week after school and treats herself to the salty fast food instead of the microwavable dinners her mother stocks in their apartment for nights when she has to work. Felicity finds the din of the restaurant provides the perfect sort of white noise for her to do her homework. And the milkshakes and fries certainly don’t hurt.

When she looks out the window, she notices it’s already dark. She’s been here for a couple of hours and, with homework and dinner completed, she starts to pack up for home. Checking the time on her phone, she sees the #55 bus is less than 10 minutes away. That route will take her pretty close to home, and in the nice weather she doesn’t mind a bit of a walk. She shoulders her backpack, empties her tray, and heads out the door.

The bus stop is within spitting distance of the Big Belly. It’s well-lit and it’s covered in case of rain. She sidles up to it and leans one shoulder against side wall. She’s the only one there, and she stands in silence, watching the traffic go by.

A minute or two later, she sees someone else come up the sidewalk, a tall figure in a leather jacket. When he stops under the shelter of the bus stop, she takes a peek at him. He’s big, tall and broad in the shoulders. He has dark skin and short cropped hair and an attractive face. He sits on the metal bench and, like her, looks out over the street.

“Nice night,” he says.

“Uh, yeah,” she answers, slightly surprised by him speaking, but not unfamiliar with idle chit chat at the bus stop. “It’d be great for star gazing, except, you know,” she waves her hand around her, “light pollution.”

His mouth ticks up a bit in amusement, but he doesn’t say anything else. The sound of a diesel engine coming down the street catches both of their attention. Felicity straightens from her lean and leather jacket guy gets up from the bench. When the bus stops in front of them, he lets her get on first.

Felicity picks a spot near the front, a seat facing across the aisle. She sees leather jacket guy move past her towards the back. The bus lurches forward, back on its way, and Felicity gets out her phone and plays Candy Crush through the stops and starts of the route. This time of day, after the bustle of rush hour, the bus moves fairly quickly through the streets and before long it’s time to pull the bell for her stop. She tucks her phone away in the pocket of her jacket and moves to the front of the bus as it slows to a stop. She gives the driver an automatic “Thank you” before walking down onto the sidewalk. She makes her way up the street unhurrying, humming a little under her breath. It’s only when she stops at an intersection waiting for the walk light that she notices him again, the man from the bus stop.

She starts a bit as he comes up beside her, standing a few feet to her right. She gives her head a little shake, telling herself that there’s no need to be scared. They had the same stop and now, presumably, he’s also just waiting for the light to change. And it does, and they cross the street and she continues on. But a right turn, another block, and a short cut through a parking lot later, he’s still behind her.

Felicity, as a rule, tries to see the best in things. She refuses to look at the world as a never- ending series of pitfalls and dangers and she tries to give people the benefit of the doubt. But even she’s getting nervous now. Leather jacket guy is easily twice her size and it seems like she hasn’t seen another person or a car for ages.

She picks up her pace, but so does he, the distance between them stays the same. She’s close to home, but still far enough away that she doesn’t think she could make a run for it if she needed to. There’s a courtyard ahead that she can cut across to take her to her block, but she normally avoids it at night. It’s too dark and too empty to be a safe choice when she’s walking alone, but now she’s wondering if she should chance it. She decides to try one last experiment before making up her mind. She starts to run. When a quick glance over her shoulder shows her that he’s running too, she darts for the courtyard.

Felicity can’t remember the last time she ran like this. Her backpack jostles with her steps and her breathing seems so loud to her ears. She runs surprisingly sure-footed through the space, her eyes having no trouble with the dim light. She’s almost through to the other side when a sharp twinge in her gut nearly doubles her over. She stops for just a second clutching her side, and when she looks up, there’s a man directly in front of her. He’s lanky and pale and his smile is lecherous. Felicity is fairly certain she shrieks. She turns to run back the other way, but two more people stand behind her. Together, the three of them start to close the circle.

“Mmmm,” the first one says, causing her to whip back around in his direction. “A snack.” Before her eyes, his face contorts into something more monstrous.

Felicity can feel her heart pounding like it’s trying to break through her chest. Her eyes fill with tears. Her only chance is to run, and she searches franticly for an opening, gaze darting everywhere. But every move she makes is countered by one of them, and they close in. The lanky guy reaches for her. She opens her mouth to scream but the sound gets stuck in her throat. Then the next thing she knows, lanky guy is stumbling backward and he hits the pavement. A large, leather clad arm drives a wooden stake through his chest and her attacker explodes into a cloud of dust. Felicity looks to the newcomer. It’s the guy from the bus stop.

One of the remaining members of the trio rushes past her and jumps on the man from the bus. And before she can make a break for it, the other grabs her from behind. But Felicity refuses to go down without a fight, and she struggles and squirms against the hold with everything she has. In front of her, she watches her would-be rescuer grapple with his attacker. She may have been running away from him a minute ago, but she is most definitely rooting for him now. The wooden stake that was in his hand sits on the pavement near his feet. Mid-fight, he looks right at her and says her name.

“Felicity!” he calls, then he kicks the stake in her direction.

In what is quite possibly the most automatic reaction of her life, Felicity juts her elbow out behind her, right into the stomach of the guy holding her captive. The instant he lets go, she grabs the stake, spins around, and jabs it full force into his chest. And before the dust even settles, she moves to the next guy, still mid-grapple, and stakes him too. Then it’s just her and leather jacket guy standing in the empty courtyard.

Wide-eyed and breathing heavily, Felicity stares dumbfounded at the wooden stake in her hand before dropping it unceremoniously to the ground.

“What the hell was that?!” she demands, frantic edge to her voice. “How did I know how to do that?!”

“Those were vampires,” leather jacket guy answers, his voice infinitely calmer than hers. “And you knew what to do because you’ve been doing it for a thousand years.”

“Who are you?” she asks, still frantic, still confused, still terrified. “Why are you following me?”

“My name is John Diggle,” he answers, “and I’ve been looking for you, Felicity Smoak.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the chosen one Felicity. The one who can stop these monsters. The one who can stop Darhk.”

Felicity shakes her head and takes a step back, away from him, away from everything. “No. No. This is crazy,” she says. “You’re crazy,” she directs at him. “We have to call the police. We have to…” her voice trails off. For the first time in a long time, Felicity doesn’t have any ideas.

“Call the police and tell them what?” he counters. “To report three piles of dust? This is beyond what the police can do Felicity. This is what you have to do. And I think part of you knows that.”

Standing in her school uniform in the middle of a dark courtyard with a total stranger who probably just saved her life, Felicity has only one thought in her head. “This is insane,” she says. “I’m leaving.”

She moves past him, giving him a wide berth, her steps quick. She doesn’t get very far before she hears “You have dreams, don’t you?”

Her stomach lurches into her throat and she stops moving before she realizes it.

“Dreams of being somewhere else,” he continues, his tone gentle, like he’s trying not to spook her. “Dreams of fighting. Dreams of dying.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Her whole life her dreams have been her constant, sometimes terrifying, companions. And she’s never spoken about them to anyone.

“Maybe you dream about Barbados, the plantation,” he says, and her mind’s eye calls up the manor house she’s seen a thousand times, and the feel of the sugarcane scraping across her skin as she runs through the field in the dead of night.

“Or maybe you remember Bavaria, where Darhk burned village after village to the ground.”

Tears leak out of her eyes unbidden.

“Or maybe –“

She finally moves, whips around to face him. “Stop,” she commands him, and he goes quiet. “I believe you,” she says.

Felicity takes a moment to breathe, to brush the tears from her cheeks. In some weird way, finding out that this John Diggle knows about her dreams feels more shocking than being attacked. That this total stranger knows such an intimate detail about her is…unsettling. When she finds her voice again she asks, “How do you know all this?”

“Because I was there too,” he answers. “My job has always been to train you. To help you prepare.”

“Prepare for what?”

He gives her a sad smile. “There is a lot to explain,” he says. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a small white card. He holds it out for her to take. “Meet me here after school tomorrow, and we’ll go from there.”

She hesitates for a moment before taking the card. On it she sees an address she doesn’t recognize.

“Go home,” he tells her. “Get some rest. I’ll stay here until you’re back on the street.”

The fight has drained out of her, and Felicity is fairly certain that this man isn’t going to kill her, so she just nods and after a second, she turns and starts walking for home. True to his word, he doesn’t follow after her. But she swears she can feel his gaze on her back until she’s out of his sight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone, for you kudos and kind comments. They make my day.  
> And to give credit where credit is due, I steal the occasional line of dialogue from both the Buffy movie and Arrow.  
> Enjoy!

Felicity digs through her backpack looking for a notebook she knows is in there somewhere but, for the life of her, just can’t find. She heaves a sigh before setting her bag on the floor outside of her locker and kneeling down to take things out one by one. This is how her day’s been going. She’s been frazzled, she’s been out of sorts, she’s been exhausted.

When she got home the night before, after her altercation in the courtyard, she’d been mentally and physically exhausted. But, unsurprisingly, she hadn’t been able to sleep. Every time she’d start to drift off, she’d dream, flashes of scenes she’d seen her whole life. Running over moorland with only the moonlight to guide her, or fighting in dark alleys with the smell of coal smoke in the air. They were just dreams, weren’t they? How could they be anything more?

Finally finding the errant notebook, Felicity starts refilling her bag, tossing things in in a jumble. She zips it closed and stands, hiking it over her should as she goes. She spins around, intent on heading to the library, but one step forward has her crashing into something. In the second it takes to get her wits about her, she realizes it wasn’t a something she crashed into, but a someone. She looks up into the bright blue eyes of Oliver Queen.

Out of frustration and some embarrassment, an unflattering “Ugh,” escapes her mouth. At her reaction, Oliver huffs a laugh. She counts backwards from three in her head, then starts again.

“Sorry is what I should be saying right now,” she starts. “So, sorry.”

His mouth ticks up into a bit of a smile and she can see the mole he has just under his lip. It’s only then she realizes how close they’re standing, and that her fingers are wrapped around his forearms. She must have grabbed on when she stumbled. She lets go of him and takes a step back way too quickly to be subtle. It seems to amuse him even more.

“It’s alright,” he tells her, then after a second adds, “Is everything ok Felicity?”

Despite spending the better part of her life in Las Vegas, Felicity, it seems, has a terrible poker face. Cisco and Caitlin had questioned her this morning too, noticing something was amiss. She gave a half-truth answer about not being able to sleep and then avoided them for the rest of the day. Her friends knowing something is bothering her she understands. But seeing Oliver pick up on it? That tells her she must be looking worse than she thinks she is.

“Uh, yeah,” she tells him as convincingly as she can. “Just things, going on, in here,” she says pointing to her head. “What about you?” she asks next, deflecting the subject away from her. “Break up any more fights recently?”

Something in Oliver’s expression changes then, just a little, but she notices. “No,” he says shaking his head, some hair falling down into his eyes. He runs his hand through it pushing it away. “Max has been laying low lately, it seems.”

“Oh,” is all she can think to say.  
They stand in somewhat awkward silence for a beat until Oliver takes a step back.

“Have a nice night Felicity,” he says, and he moves around her and continues on his way. 

“You too Oliver,” she says quietly as she watches him walk away.

Alone in the hallway she sighs, deep and breathy, before giving her head a shake and continuing on toward the library. Swooning over Oliver Queen is a bad idea. Yes, he is ridiculously attractive, with kind eyes and a surprisingly gentle manner. But he also has a devilish smile, a wild streak, and a well-earned reputation for, literally, charming the pants off people. Besides that, to say they run in different circles is an understatement. Oliver is one of the Starling City elite, and she’s a scholarship kid who’s into computers.

Her thoughts are still on Oliver by the time she makes it to the library. Maybe it’s a by-product of being a school that caters to the wealthy and privileged, but the library at Starling Prep is almost always deserted, which is just the way Felicity wants it right now. Sometime in the early dawn hours, when her mind was working a mile a minute and sleep was eluding her, Felicity decided she was going to try to put the whole ‘encounter with strange men in the courtyard’ thing behind her. Whatever the hell was going on, she didn’t want any part of it. She had a plan for her life already, and it involved graduating high school with honours, going to MIT, and starting her own technology firm. That’s what she was going to focus on. 

She makes her way through the quiet library to a row of study desks along the back wall. Unsurprisingly, they’re all empty, so she takes her pick and starts to set herself up work on her homework. She’s midway through an essay paragraph on the modern relevance of George Orwell’s 1984 when he sits down beside her. His unexpected presence startles her and makes her jump.

“I hate to state the obvious here,” he says, “but you didn’t come meet me like we agreed.”

Felicity looks over at John Diggle. He’s sporting the same leather jacket as the night before and looks totally out of place sitting at a small study desk in a high school library.

“I never said that I’d meet you,” she answers somewhat defensively.

“I thought we’d come to an understanding,” he replies.

“Look,” she says, pushing herself away from the desk, “I appreciate that there are real vampires out there, and I thank you for helping me when I needed it. But this ‘chosen one’ business? Somebody must have coded their search algorithm wrong, because I’m not your girl. I don’t think I’m up for it.”

“It’s not about what you think, Felicity,” he says, “it’s about what you are. And you’re the slayer.”

When she doesn’t answer, John leans back in his chair and heaves a sigh. “I shouldn’t have waited so long to find you,” he says. “But things were quiet, and they stayed quiet and, I don’t know, I just thought that maybe this time, we could have a normal life.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says coldly.

“Yes you do,” he counters. “That’s why you’re so defensive about it. You know they’re more than just dreams, Felicity. They’re memories. This is your destiny.”

“And I’m supposed to, what?” she snaps at him. “Fight and defeat an ancient evil? I’m seventeen! I can’t run more than 200 meters without getting a cramp! I’ve never thrown a punch in my life! How can I be the one you’re looking for?”

“So punch me,” he challenges.

“What?”

“You say you’ve never thrown a punch? Well let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffs.

“Come on,” he says, getting up to stand a few feet in front of her. “At the very least you can cross ‘punch someone in the face’ off your bucket list.” When she doesn’t move from her seat he adds, “I’m not leaving here until you do.”

Reluctantly, she gets up, for no other reason than to move this thing along so she can get back to her essay. The whole situation is ridiculous, she thinks. She’s half his size. She barely reaches his shoulder. What this is supposed to prove, she has no idea. Half-heartedly, she jabs him in the stomach. 

John glares down at her arm, still hovering near his stomach, then gives her an incredulous look. “We both know you can do better than that,” he says. But she makes no move to punch him again.

“I was there last night Felicity,” he says, his voice taking on some insistence. “You knocked that guy off of you, you took down two vampires with instinct alone. You’ve got more power than you know. So don’t think, just do. Hit me Felicity.”

“I…” she hesitates.

“Hit me!” he barks.

Maybe it’s because she’s startled by his tone, or maybe she’s just finally had enough, but the next thing Felicity knows, she’s moving, driving her fist towards his stomach. She feels the impact shoot up her arm as John doubles over in front of her. The left hook follows without her even thinking, colliding with the side of his face hard enough to make him stumble back.

When she realizes what she’s done, she gasps, hands that just knocked back a grown man coming up to cover her open mouth. Her eyes are wide as John stands back up straight, wiping a spot of blood coming from his lip with the back of his hand.

“Holy shit,” she says when her shock wears off enough that she can finally form words again. “I am so sorry. I’ve never punched anybody before.”

“Well you did it perfectly,” is John’s reply.

“My hand doesn’t even hurt,” she says examining her left one in surprise. 

“Haven’t you noticed things about yourself, Felicity? Things you can do better than other people? Like seeing in the dark, or your balance and coordination?”

She thinks back to the gymnastics classes her mother enrolled her in when she was younger. She remembers how effortless it was to run and tumble and jump.

“And that cramp you had yesterday?” he continues. “That wasn’t from running. It was a reaction to the vampires nearby. It’s your body’s version of a warning system.”

Felicity tries to take it all in, absorb what he saying. On some deep, guttural level, she can feel the truth of it. But her scientific brain keeps hounding her with one very important question. “How is this possible?”

“I don’t know the ins and outs of how it works,” he tells her, “And I don’t know why it’s you, or me for that matter. But I do know what we have to do. And I can show you.”

She looks at him for a moment, long and hard, and he doesn’t shy away. There is nothing about this that isn’t crazy, but what she feels in her bones, she’s finding harder and harder to deny.  
Finally she nods, and with all the certainty she can muster she says “Ok. Let’s do this.”

**

Oliver lays in his ridiculously large bed surrounded by pillows and rumpled sheets. The book he was unenthusiastically reading for English class sits beside him where it fell out of his grip as he drifted off to sleep. The television, still on at low volume, fills the room with a bluish glow and the sounds of canned laughter.

Tap tap tap

Tap tap tap

“Ollie!”

The sound is constant enough to wake him, but in his half-conscious state, it’s hard to pinpoint what it is. He’s sure he hears his name, but who would be calling for him is confusing. It’s not Thea’s voice, and no one else in this house would call him “Ollie”.

Tap tap tap

It’s like a knocking, but not on his door. It clinks, like glass. Oliver looks around his room, eyes landing on the large bank of windows covered by thick drapes. Slowly, he gets out of bed and walks over. The closer he gets, the louder the tapping becomes. He pulls back the curtain and jumps.

“Damn it, Max,” he says. “You scared me.”

Oliver sees his friend through the glass. He hasn’t seen or heard from him since the night Max decided to go to Poison.

“Ollie, let me in,” Max says.

Oliver starts pulling at the window latch, but it’s stuck.

“Where the hell have you been, man?” Oliver asks while the he fights with the latch. “I must have texted you, like, 50 times.”

“Come on, Ollie, let me in,” Max repeats.

“I even thought about calling your parents, but I didn’t want to narc on you.” Oliver tugs as hard as he can, but it’s not budging.

“Invite me in Ollie! Invite me in!” Max demands, and something about that kick starts a part of Oliver’s brain that must have still been dozy because he finally realizes that his bedroom is on the second floor of the house and there’s no way in hell Max should be able to be on the other side of the glass.

Oliver stops trying to open the window. He takes a step back and actually looks at Max. Maybe it’s just the distortion of the glass, but something about him seems…off. 

“You look terrible,” Oliver says bluntly.

“Well I feel great,” Max says, his tone aggressive. “Come outside and I’ll tell you everything.”

“No,” Oliver shakes his head. “This isn’t happening. I must be asleep. This has to be a dream.”

“Ollie…” Max presses.

“You’re floating!” Oliver snaps. “This isn’t real. I’m going back to bed.”

Through the window, Max full-on snarls at him.

Oliver sharply pulls the curtains closed and spins away from the window. He crawls back into bed and buries his head under a pillow. Six hours later, he’s still there, unsure whether he’s been asleep or awake the entire time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's update is a two-fer! Chapters 4 and 5! Because they sort of go together, and because I think you've all waited patiently for some Oliver.  
> And, as before, I do steal the occasional line of dialogue from both the Buffy movie and from Arrow.  
> Enjoy!

Left.

Right.

Right.

Left.

Felicity follows the punch mitts on John’s hand, hitting as hard as she can. When he goes high, she swings from the hip for a roundhouse kick. When he grabs for her, she veers away from his grasp. Blond curls that have escaped her ponytail stick to the side of her face. Felicity is quite certain she’s never been so sweaty in her life. And given what her life’s become in the last two weeks, that’s really saying something.

After John confronted her at the library, he had brought her here, to his base of operations in the basement of an old Queen Consolidated factory in the Glades.

“Do you own this place?” Felicity had asked the first time she’d seen it. The building was empty and run-down.

“Nope,” was his answer.

“So you’re squatting here?”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

It made more sense, then, that he had set up shop in the basement. With no windows below ground, no one from the outside would even know they were here. It was also in their best interest, John argued, to hide themselves from what they were fighting.

The space John had set up was clean but sparse. It had elements of a training gym, with mats and punching bags, and even a mini-fridge for water and snacks. But there were also books on vampire lore, an assortment of weapons, and rows and rows of wooden stakes. Where the electricity came from, Felicity had no idea.

This is where she comes now, every day after school. To say it’s turned her life upside down would be an understatement. Gone are her visits to the library or Big Belly Burger for homework, now she races through assignments at lunch hour and on bus rides and in homeroom. She doesn’t meet with her friends after school to tinker with C-4PO, instead she works on his program when she can carve out a minute or two. She did manage to find an hour last Saturday to actually meet with her friends and talk shop about the robot, but she had to bow out of the pizza and movie hangout at Cisco’s place.

Arguably, the hardest part for her is when people notice her absences. Cisco, Caitlin, and Cooper have heard every excuse in the book now about why she can’t spend time with them. And her mom hasn’t been able to hide her disappointment when Felicity skips out on the few nights a week when they can actually have dinner together.

The pace Felicity has set for herself is exhausting, but she doesn’t see a choice. As soon as she opened herself up to the possibility that this ‘chosen one’ business could be real, the truth of it started to become more and more apparent. From her effortless rapport with John, to the ease with which she’s picking up the combat skills he’s teaching her, she can’t deny anymore that there’s something about this, about _her_ , that’s different. She doesn’t know how, and she sure as hell doesn’t know why, but it seems that fate has made her the vampire slayer. It’s her duty to protect people, and she can’t turn her back on that.

“So if I’m the slayer, then what are you?” she had asked John as he’d tried to explain things to her.

“The lore calls me a Watcher,” he’d replied. “In every lifetime, I’m born with the knowledge I need to find and train the slayer.”

“Does that mean you remember our past together?”

“Mostly. It takes some time for my brain to sort it all out, to make sense of the pieces, but yes.”

“Then why don’t I?”

“You remember some of it, your dreams are proof of that. You just didn’t know what they meant.”

“Tell me about them,” she asked him. And he did. John filled in the pieces of the memories she’d always seen but didn’t fully understand. Where she was, why she was fighting, and who she was fighting. Finally, the terrifying man with the sinister blue eyes had a name: Damien Darhk.

“He’s an ancient vampire,” John had told her. “Possibly one of the first ever created. And he uses a magic I’ve never seen anywhere else.”

“He’s killed me, hasn’t he?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

John’s face, his voice, turned sad when he answered. “Yeah.”

She tries not to dwell on it, the fact that she’s fought before and lost. When she’s training, she focuses on the motions.

Left.

Left.

Right.

Kick.

There’s almost something soothing about it, following the punch mitts. She takes comfort in the rhythm.

“Good,” John tells her, lowering the mitts and tugging them off his hands. “I think you’re ready Felicity.”

“Ready for what?” she asks, grabbing a towel to wipe her brow.

“A field test.”

Felicity can feel her eyes go wide. Judging by the uptick of John’s mouth, she’s sure the look on her face is comical. Not dwelling on the fact that she’s died before as the slayer is easier to do when the only person she’s fighting is John.

“You didn’t think we’d stay down here forever, did you?” he asks her with some amusement.

Felicity gives her head a shake. “No, of course not. It’s just…so soon? Are you sure I’m ready? Because I don’t feel like I’m ready. I mean, I don’t _feel_ like a vampire slayer yet, not that I really remember what it feels like to be a vampire slayer, but I’m sure it has to be different than this, I mean –“

She takes a breath and stops rambling when John puts a hand on her shoulder.

“You’re ready,” he tells her with a confidence she wishes she felt. “Everything you need, it’s already there Felicity, locked inside your brain. You just have to let it come out.”

She nods, trusting him in a way she can’t quite explain. Before she can ask, he adds “I’ll come with you. Be your backup.” That makes her feel a little better about it.

She collects some gear, a cross and three wooden stakes, and stuffs them in a shoulder bag. She pulls on a sweater, and a toque to ward against the nighttime chill and to cover her sweaty hair. Then with one last deep breath, she climbs the clanging metal steps out of the foundry basement to head out into the dark streets of the Glades and look for vampires.

“Where do I go?” she asks John.

“Vampires will generally stick to places just off the beaten path. The dark spaces at the edge of the light.”

“That’s a bit cryptic,” she answers.

John just shrugs. “Don’t overthink it. Just go, follow your gut. I’ll be right behind you.”

So she walks, through the bad part of town, at night, seemingly all alone. She can just imagine the horror that would cross her mother’s face if Donna Smoak knew what her daughter was up to right now. Even with all the internal reminders Felicity is giving herself about how this is her destiny and all that jazz, it doesn’t quell the nervousness in her stomach. She starts to hum to herself just to fill the empty space around her with some noise.

She’s midway through her third block when a sudden cramp has her clutching her side and stopping in her tracks. “Ow,” she mutters under her breath. Taking in her surroundings, she catches sight of an alleyway a few steps ahead of her, running between two run-down brick buildings.

“Edge of the light,” she mutters to herself, reaching into her bag and grabbing one of the wooden stakes stashed there.

She approaches the mouth of the alleyway and peeks in. It’s shadowed and dirty, littered with trash and dead leaves and an old shopping cart, but it’s quiet. There’s no one to be seen. But John had told her to trust her gut, and she knows he meant that in more ways than one. So she steps into the narrow space and heads into the darkness.

When he jumps down in front of her she starts. He’s got long hair and a ripped jacket and she can tell by the look on his face that he enjoyed scaring her. She works to steady her breathing.

“You walked down the wrong alley, girly,” he tells her, and before her eyes, his face transforms from human to the mottled, yellow-eyed face of a vampire with fangs on full display.

Felicity’s first instinct is to take a step back, to put some distance between her and this monster. But then her hand grips around the wooden stake, and there’s something about the weight of it, the feel of it against her palm, that triggers something inside of her. So instead she stands her ground and tells him, “Nope. You are just what I’ve been looking for.”

She kicks high, her foot landing on his chest and pushing him back. He recovers faster than she expects and grabs for her, but she dodges, ducking under his outreached hands and barreling into him will all her might. This time, he goes down to the ground. She moves to stake him, but he grabs a discarded garbage can lid and swipes it at her. He gets two swings in before she kicks it out of his hand, sending it into the brick wall with an echoing _clang._ Before he can react again, she swoops in with the stake, driving it through his heart without a second of hesitation. He turns to dust on the spot.

“I did it,” she says to no one but herself, a tone of amazement in her voice. She spins around to find John waiting at the entrance. “I did it,” she says again, louder, but with no less amazement.

“You did,” John replies with a bit of a smile on his face. “Maybe not the best choice of location though,” he adds, tilting his head towards the alley wall. “If there had been a group of them, you might have been in trouble.”

Some of her elation deflates with that point. John must see it in her face because he’s quick to add “It’s a learning curve Felicity. For your first time out, you did great.”

“Well,” she says, reaching down to grab her stake, “I didn’t die, so that’s a plus.”

He huffs a laugh. “Definite plus,” he says. “What do you say we get some Big Belly Burger to celebrate your first successful patrol?”

Half an hour later, they’re under the florescent lights of the diner, each with a burger and a mountain of french fries between them. It feels like forever since she’s been here, since she’s done anything this normal. Outside the window, Felicity can see the bus stop where she and John first met. That night feels like a lifetime ago.

“Can we talk about the cramps?” she asks John between bites of her hamburger. “That seems like a terrible super power. How does it help me to be doubled over in pain?”

“Well it gets your attention, doesn’t it?” he answers around a smile.

She shoots him a look.

“You’ll get used to it,” he promises a little more sympathetically. “And then they won’t be so jarring.”

It’s weird, sometimes, to Felicity that John seems to know more about her than she does. But she’s starting to remember more, to, as John put it, make sense of all the pieces in her head. Yet, for all she’s learning about John’s past, she doesn’t know very much at all about his present. With everything else she’s had to learn lately, there just didn’t seem to be the time. 

“So,” she says, looking across the table, “what were you doing before we started spending all our time together?”

“I was in Afghanistan,” he tells her, grabbing some fries and popping them into his mouth.

“Looking for vampires?” she asks, her voice trailing up in confusion.

“More like avoiding looking for vampires,” he answers. “I was in the military. Did a couple of tours overseas.”

“And you’re not military anymore?”

“No. Being a Watcher, that’s my destiny. I always find my way to it, whether I’m trying to or not.”

Felicity doesn’t quite know what to say to that, but she’s saved from having to reply by a loud clatter that catches everyone’s attention. It’s followed by an apology issued to the entire restaurant.

“Sorry! Sorry everyone. That was my bad,” says a dark haired boy from a table across the diner. When Felicity looks over, she realizes that it’s Tommy Merlyn who’s addressing them all. She recognizes Laurel Lance sitting to his left, hand over her mouth to try to stifle her laughter, which has to make the boy sitting with his back to her none other than Oliver Queen. She studies the shape of his shoulders, as if that would somehow make his identify clear to her. She knows she’s been starring longer than she should be when John’s voice startles her.

“Do you know them?” he asks.

“Yes. Well, kinda,” is her clumsy reply. “They go to my school.”

John nods a bit, then pops another fry into his mouth. They finish their meals and John goes to bus their tray while Felicity sucks the last remnants of her milkshake and moves to wait for him by the front door. She’s just opening the lid of her cup to make sure she got it all when Oliver moves past her.

“Oh, hey Felicity,” he says when he notices her. “You like this place too?”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” is her super smooth reply. “Best burgers in town.”

Tommy and Laurel have stopped behind him and they all form an awkward group in front of the glass doors.

“You’re the girl from calculus class,” Tommy says, pointing to her. “Oh, man, I wish my desk was closer to yours. You aced our last test and it really would have helped me to copy some of those answers.”

His smile is so charming that Felicity has no idea whether he’s joking or not. But before she has to answer, Laurel chimes in.

“It’s late. We should get going.”

“You’re right,” says Tommy, his focus now on Laurel. He opens the front door with a flourish. “Your chariot awaits, m’lady.”

Laurel rolls her eyes, but smiles a bit. Then she walks out onto the sidewalk, Tommy following behind.

“See you later,” Oliver says to her, before moving off to follow his friends.

Before the door swings shut behind them, Felicity feels a twinge in her side. Her hand flies up to cover the spot.

“Everything ok?” John asks coming up beside her.

“I don’t know,” she answers.

Felicity looks through the glass onto the sidewalk, and watches as Oliver and his friends move further down the street, and out of sight.


	5. Chapter 5

Oliver dips a french fry into his milkshake, coating it with just the right amount of creamy goodness before popping it into this mouth. It was something that Laurel had introduced him to, years ago, and he had to admit that the combination of sweet and salty, hot and cold, was close to perfection.

When Tommy had asked him to Big Belly tonight, he’d had no idea that his friend had also planned on bringing Laurel along. “It’ll be like old times,” Tommy had said when Oliver met them both on the sidewalk outside the diner. Laurel, Oliver could tell, had been blindsided too, but it wasn’t an unexpected move coming from Tommy.

Laurel had broken up with Oliver, this time, after she caught him making out with another girl at the last party Tommy had thrown. Oliver had been all kinds of drunk at the time, but even he knew that wasn’t much of an excuse. But this was how things seemed to go with Laurel. They would date until he did something stupid or inconsiderate or inexplicable, then she would break up with him and he would apologize and chase her around and, eventually, she would take him back again. That was their pattern. Except, maybe this time, he didn’t want it to be.

“So this waitress is carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres that’s the size of a truck tire,” Tommy says, regaling them with a story from the last charity fundraiser his father had dragged him to. "I mean this thing was huge! And I guess she was having trouble seeing where she was going because one minute she was on the terrace, and the next SPLASH, into the pool.” Tommy’s voice and hands are animated as he speaks, and Oliver can’t help but chuckle to himself at how much his friend loves an audience.

“And cocktail wieners and camembert cheese are flying everywhere, and everyone is now staring at the pool, and this poor girl is standing there, waist deep in water, with the most shocked and horrified look on her face.”

Tommy pauses, as much for a drink of his milkshake as for dramatic effect, Oliver is pretty sure.

“So what did you do?” Laurel prompts him.

“The only thing I could do,” Tommy answers with a sly grin on his face. “I jumped in the pool with her.”

Oliver laughs, Laurel too.

“Full tuxedo, shoes and watch and all, right in,” Tommy says, grinning widely. “My dad was not amused.”

Oliver shakes his head, still laughing. Things like this were why he liked Tommy so much. Not only would he jump into a pool at a black tie charity fundraiser, but he’d tell you all about it afterward just to get a laugh. And Oliver had needed a laugh.

After his bizarre dream, Oliver had been worried enough about Max to start asking questions. Seems his parents were away in Switzerland or something and general consensus was that Max must have gone with them. Still, something about the whole situation had left Oliver uneasy. Tommy was sure Oliver’s mood was the product of being on the outs with Laurel, which is probably why he arranged this dinner. Whatever Tommy’s motives, Oliver does have to admit, he’s having a pretty good time.

Tommy has no shortage of stories, and he keeps them entertained. At one point, a particularly grand gesture has him knocking the metal napkin dispenser clear off the table. The clatter it makes is so loud that Tommy apparently feels the need to apologize to the whole restaurant, much to Laurel’s amusement.

When all the food has been eaten and the milkshakes enjoyed, the trio gets up to leave. Oliver is leading the way to the front door when somebody catches his attention. A girl with a blond ponytail in an oversized sweater stands by the door examining the contents of her cup. It takes him a second, in this new setting and without her school uniform, for him to realize that it’s Felicity Smoak. He seems to be seeing her everywhere lately. Last semester, they’d been in the same history class and one day, in a fairly rambling manner, she’d corrected the teacher about a detail of the Apollo 11 mission. The teacher had not been amused, but it had certainly caught Oliver’s attention. And it didn’t hurt that he thought she was pretty. It was never a hardship to keep bumping into a pretty girl.

“Oh, hey Felicity,” he says, unexpected smile on his face. “You like this place too?”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” she answers, slightly startled. “Best burgers in town.”

Tommy and Laurel stop behind him and for a beat they all stand there in awkward silence. But then Tommy pipes in with “You’re the girl from calculus class. Oh, man, I wish my desk was closer to yours. You aced our last test and it really would have helped me to copy some of those answers.”

Laurel puts a hand on Tommy’s arm. “It’s late,” she says. “We should get going.”

“You’re right,” says Tommy, followed by an over-the-top “Your chariot awaits, m’lady.”

Laurel rolls her eyes, but smiles a bit. Then she walks out onto the sidewalk, Tommy following behind.

Oliver takes a last look at Felicity. It could just be the light, but he’s pretty sure he spots a streak of dirt across her forehead. “See you later,” he says, before following Tommy out the door. He resists the urge to look back at her through the glass.

Laurel was right, it is pretty late. The street outside the diner is mostly empty. Tommy’s parked just around the corner, and the three of them walk together, Laurel wrapping her coat around herself against the slight chill in the air. When they get to his car, Tommy opens the passenger door for her and says to Oliver, “Hop in man, I’ll drive you to your car.”

“Nah,” says Oliver, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I can walk. I’m just on the next block.” Truth is, as well as tonight had gone, he needed some space.

“Suit yourself,” Tommy says, clapping him on the back. He moves over to the driver’s door and calls out “Night Ollie,” before ducking into his seat. As they pull away from the curb, Oliver waves.

Alone under the streetlight, Oliver walks a few paces before hopping off the sidewalk and crossing the empty street. If he cuts through the park, he’ll be at his car in just a few minutes. The grass is dark, but the path is lit, and he crosses into the space without a second thought.

He’s about halfway through when he sees a figure on the path ahead. It’s not walking or jogging or even talking loudly on a cell phone, it’s just standing there. Oliver slows his pace and his heart beat kicks up a notch. When he gets a little closer, he can make out a face in the dim light, one he wasn’t expecting to see.

“Max?” he says with equal parts hesitation and surprise.

“Hello Ollie,” Max replies.

Oliver comes to a stop a few feet away. He looks around the darkened park for some sign of what Max might be doing out here, but he sees nothing.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. He means the question in more ways than one. What is Max doing in Starling? He’s supposed to be away with his parents. And what is he doing standing stock still in the middle of a dimly lit park?

“I tried to give you a chance, Ollie,” Max says, walking a step closer. Oliver instinctually takes a step back. “But you left me hanging. Now, I guess, we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

“Do what the hard way?” Oliver asks with way more panic in his voice than he’d like to admit.

In an instant, Max’s face turns from Max to monster, yellow-eyed and fearsome. Oliver is pretty sure his reaction is an undignified shriek. He spins around and starts to run, but a pair of arms shove him down and he scrapes against the gravel of the path. Two more monsters close in.

“Once you’ve changed,” Max says coming closer, causing Oliver to scramble aimlessly along the ground, “you’ll thank me.”

“Not happening,” says a new voice. And the next thing Oliver knows, Felicity Smoak is punching Max with a mean left hook. When he stumbles, a roundhouse kick puts him on the ground. Then Felicity raises her arm and stabs down onto his chest and, suddenly, where Max was, is now just a pile of dust.

“John,” he hears her say, and she tosses something over him. Oliver turns around just in time to see a large man catch what she threw and stab another of the monsters who poofs into dust just like Max. Where the third monster has gone, Oliver has no idea.

“Oliver,” Felicity says coming closer to him. “Are you ok?”

Oliver is pretty sure he has lost the power of speech. All he can manage is to stare at her, eyes wide and mouth gaping. She crouches down next to him which, given what she’d just done, might also be terrifying, but there’s a sympathetic look in her eyes, on her face, and Oliver knows he doesn’t have to be afraid of her.

“This is…a lot to take in,” she says. “Believe me, I know. But Max…he wasn’t Max anymore.”

Wheels turn in Oliver’s head as he takes in the impossible scene in front of him, the impossible things he just saw. “So it _was_ real,” he mutters.

“What was real?” Felicity asks gently.

“Max, he came to my window. He was floating. He was…” he trials off, not knowing how to finish that sentence.

“He was a vampire,” Felicity supplies.

Oliver lets that sit in his head, his brain torn between telling him it’s not possible and replaying the things he’s just seen.

“You’re hurt,” Felicity says, her voice breaking into his ruminations. It’s only then that he feels blood trickling down his neck. He must have scraped himself on the gravel.

“Why don’t you come with John and I?” she offers. “I promise to explain things the best I can.”

From getting up with the help of Felicity’s outstretched hand, to getting into the back of a black SUV, Oliver moves on autopilot. As they start to drive, he registers that Felicity and the man are debating where exactly to bring him.

“He can come to my place, John.”

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

“He’s hurt and he just watched me stake his friend. I think he deserves an explanation.”

Part way through the drive Oliver’s brain unfreezes enough for him to start asking questions. Felicity, true to her word, answers them the best she can. Yes, there are vampires. Yes, she stakes them. No, she is not sure if there are other monsters out there too, she’s got her hands full enough already. By the time they stop in front of a modest apartment building, Oliver can almost carry on a conversation again.

Felicity gets out of the car, gesturing for Oliver to follow. Once on the sidewalk, she leans into the open window and bids John goodnight. He says the same to her, and then levels Oliver with a look that he’s pretty sure means “behave yourself.” What the man thinks Oliver is going to do, besides bleed all over the carpet, is beyond him.

“Come on,” Felicity says, gesturing towards the front door with a tilt of her head. He follows her in and they take the stairs up to the third floor where she unlocks a door at the end of the hall.

“Your parents won’t mind?” Oliver asks as they cross over the threshold.

Felicity shakes her head as she closes the door behind them. “No, it’s just me and my mom, and she’s at work right now.”

She ushers him the few steps to the living room where a single lamp glows on an end table.

“I’ll get the first aid kit,” she says. “You can make yourself comfortable.”

She disappears further into the apartment, leaving Oliver alone in the unfamiliar space. He feels awkward, unsure what to do with himself. In his defense, this whole night has been…a lot. He finds himself pacing in the small space, his eyes flitting everywhere. A shelf with trophies glinting in the dim light catches his attention. There’s half a dozen of them, inscribed with things like “Division 1 Gymnastics. First Place.” On another self, there’s a picture of Felicity outside of Starling Prep. She’s smiling, though somewhat reluctantly it seems, and an older woman with long blond hair, a fuchsia dress, and a huge grin has her arm around her.

“That was my first visit to Starling Prep,” Felicity’s voice comes out of nowhere and startles him slightly. He spins to face her, slightly sheepish at being caught snooping, although Felicity doesn’t seem bothered. She’s shed her sweater and stands a few feet from him in a snug black tank top, wash cloth in her hand and a first aid kit tucked under her arm.

“My mom thought we should take the picture,” she continued. “To commemorate our ‘new beginning’, as she called it.” She gestures to the couch. “Have a seat,” she tells him.

He walks over to the couch and sits down. She takes a seat next to him and reaches towards his face.

“May I?” she asks, and for some reason Oliver finds that he can only nod dumbly in answer.

She grabs his chin and tilts his head over, exposing the scrapes behind his ear. That must have been what hit first when he fell. She starts running the cloth over the dried blood.

“You were a gymnast?” he asks a few moments later, when the silence and her gentle touch get to be too much.

“Yeah,” she answers, eyes still focused on her task. “When I was a kid. Apparently my talent came from latent slayer superpowers. I wonder if they would consider that cheating…”

Oliver finds himself smiling at that. Felicity puts down the wash cloth and open the tube of antiseptic.

“So, the vampire thing,” he asks while she dabs the gel delicately onto his wound, “is this a hobby for you?”

She huffs a laugh. “Coding and sci-fi are my hobbies,” she answers, “not that I have time for them anymore. Slaying vampires was…” she sighs, “never part of the plan.”

He moves his head down to look into her face as she rips open the package on an adhesive bandage. “Then why do you do it?” he asks.

She tilts his head over again to cover his scrape. “Because I’m the one with the power,” she answers softly. “I can keep people safe.” She smooths the bandage over his skin. “How can I turn my back on that?”

Felicity pulls her fingers away and Oliver drops his chin down again. The look in her eyes is heavy, and it sends a pang to Oliver’s heart.

“Thank you,” he says, realizing that he hadn’t actually told her yet, “for helping me.”

She gives him a sad smile. “You’re welcome. And I’m sorry about your friend.”

Tears sting at Oliver’s eyes as the reality that his friend is dead settles down onto him. He tries his hardest to keep them at bay.

“Yeah,” he says a little shakily. “Max could be a real jerk sometimes, but he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

“I’m sorry,” she echoes again, and Oliver shakes his head.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he tells her, meaning every word. She nods a little, and he’s grateful that she understands he doesn’t blame her.

He’s not sure what to do with himself after that. The lost feeling that has settled into his rib cage must be showing on his face because after a moment Felicity asks, “Did you want to stay? You could sleep on the couch.”

He gives her a grateful smile but says “No, I have to get home. I’ll call a cab.”

“Ok,” Felicity says, and she stays next to him while he pulls out his phone and makes the call. She hears the dispatcher tell him they’ll be by in 15 minutes.

“I’ll wait with you,” she tells him, “if you’d like.”

“Yeah,” he answers, “I would.”

They wait in silence, side by side, on the couch in her apartment.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to say a big thank you to everyone who took the time to comment or leave kudos. You all make my day!  
> And, to give credit where credit is due, I steal the occasional line of dialogue from the Buffy movie and from Arrow.

Oliver waits impatiently in the empty hallway, trying like hell not to look as anxious as he feels. Patience has never been his strong suit, and right now, he’s finding it particularly challenging. He’s already waited all day for this chance. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. He’d spent the morning sleeping, mostly due to the fact that he’d spent the night not sleeping at all. Everything that happened with Max was, as Felicity had so aptly put it, a lot to take in. But somewhere, caught in the mix of emotion and realization and disbelief, Oliver had come to a decision. Now, he has to act on it.

At last, the bell chimes for dismissal. Classroom doors open up and the hallway becomes flooded with a sea of blue blazers. Lockers open and shut, people come and go. Finally, he spots her, blond ponytail bobbing behind her as she swings open the door to her locker; the five and a half foot tall girl who took down a football player with only her bare hands and a wooden stake.

He darts across the hall, dodging a couple of freshmen as he goes. She’s just pushing the metal door shut when he gets there and he moves in to fill the space, leaning his shoulder against it.

“Hi,” he starts.

“Oliver,” she replies, a touch of surprise in her voice. “Hi. How are you doing?”

He shrugs. “Well, I just found out vampires exist, so, you know.”

She gives him a half smile. “Yeah,” she answers. “I know.”

“I want to help,” he blurts out. She blinks at him, and he’s not sure she understands what he means.

“I want to fight them,” he elaborates, “like you do. I want to help you stop them.”

He wasn’t really sure what sort of response he was expecting, but the silence that greets him feels unending. Finally, she heaves a sigh. “That’s not how it works,” she tells him.

“I can learn,” he insists. “I want to learn. You can teach me.”

She shakes her head. “No, Oliver, you don’t understand,” she says, then she closes her eyes, taking a moment to herself. When she opens them again, her eyes find his and hold his gaze. “This is my burden. I don’t have a choice,” she tells him. “But you do. Do you have any idea what it’s like?” The frustration in her voice rises. “Having your whole life decided for you?”

Oliver thinks about his father. He thinks about the Queen name and the company he’s only ever been told he’ll take over, never asked. He thinks about the college it’s always been assumed he’d attend, Harvard, because that’s where generations of his family have gone before, and how the very idea of it scares the crap out of him. He knows how it feels to think about the future with a lump in your throat. “Yeah,” he says, his voice shakier than he expected. “I know what it’s like.”

Her eyes soften then and he gets the distinct impression that, somehow, she understands what he means. But, still, she shakes her head, and his heart sinks. “I’m sorry Oliver,” she tells him with finality. And she turns and walks away.

**

Felicity walks with leaden feet, focusing only on keeping one foot moving in front to the other. It’s like she has to force herself to put distance between her and Oliver. The look she saw on his face, the honesty she heard in his voice, it pulled at her more than she’d like to admit. But it was better this way. Slaying was her cross to bear, not his. Keeping Oliver apart from her life is the right choice.

“Felicity,” she hears Cisco say as she approaches. Her friends are waiting for her just down the hall, Cisco, Caitlin and Cooper. “Were you just talking to Oliver Queen?” There’s a teasing tone in his voice, something she can’t say she’s in the mood for.

“Uh, yeah,” she says with feigned nonchalance, “I guess so.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing lately?” Cisco asks excitedly. “Are you having a secret romance with Oliver Queen?”

“What?” Felicity asks with genuine shock. “No. Of course not. I’ve been helping my mom a lot. I told you that.”

“Uh huh,” Cisco says with a ridiculous grin and a waggle of his eyebrows. Caitlin laughs. “I don’t know Felicity,” she says, adding to the teasing, “it would explain a lot. And, really, who wouldn’t want to have a secret romance with Oliver Queen?”

“Lots of people,” Felicity replies a little sharply. “Including me.” 

Her insistence, she knows, isn’t helping the situation. She knows they’re just teasing her and that she should be laughing with them. But her stomach is tying itself into knots. She hated lying to her friends. She might not be having a romantic tryst with Oliver, but she sure as hell hasn’t been helping her mother either. In fact, if you asked her mother, she would tell you that Felicity has been spending all her time with her friends working on their robot. They were lies dependent on the separation of her home life and her school life, and she honestly had no idea what she would do if they all came crashing down. But the fewer people that knew she was the slayer, the better. If Darhk and his army of monsters tracked her down, everyone Felicity cared for would be in danger.

“Does he have a swimming pool full of money?” asks Cisco. “Like Scrooge McDuck?” He’s still running with the joke and Felicity desperately wishes someone would change the subject.

“We don’t have time for this,” Cooper cuts in, and for a second, Felicity is grateful. But then he continues. “Since Felicity has been slacking, we’re behind on the robot.”

“Hey,” Felicity protests automatically, even though she knows it’s true to some extent. She’s tried to squeeze in some work on it when she can, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day anymore.

“Well then good thing I’ve been working on this,” Cisco says, pulling a black box out of his pocket with a flourish.

“What is it?” Felicity asks.

“This is a directed sonic device. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to call it yet. Maybe The Sonic Wave? Or the Sonic Boom? I don’t know, but I don’t have to figure that out until I apply for a patent so…”

“But what does it do?” Felicity asks, Cisco’s enthusiasm getting a smile out of her.

“This is what C-4PO is going to use to get through the wall obstacle,” answers Cisco.

“What?” says Cooper with some exasperation. “Cisco, we talked about this. You’re not going to be able to make a sonic device powerful enough to knock down a block wall before this competition. An extendable arm is much easier. And real.”

“You’re just saying that because you haven’t seen, or rather heard, this baby in action,” Cisco retorts. He opens up the back of the box and starts to twist two wires together. “You see –“

A horrible, high pitched trill erupts from the box in Cisco’s hand. Felicity pushes her hands over her ears as the sound echoes down the hallway.

“It’s not so bad,” she hears Cisco shout over the noise, “if it’s not aimed at you.”

“Turn it off!” Cooper shouts back, hands covering his ears too.

Cisco pulls the wires apart again and the noise, mercifully, stops. “It’s a work in progress,” he says in way of apology.

“A work in progress we don’t have time for,” says Cooper. “But if you’re going to insist on fiddling with it, I’ll make the retractable arm myself. Felicity,” he turns to her, “do you think you can find time in your suddenly busy schedule to write some code for it?” His tone isn’t teasing, and it rubs her the wrong way.

“Uh, yeah,” she answers, trying not to let her hurt feelings show, “I can try.”

“Good,” he says. “We can start right now.”

“Actually,” Felicity starts, remorse and guilt pouring out with every word, “I have to go…”

“Of course you do,” Cooper replies with a heavy dose of attitude. “Well, _I’ll_ be in the lab, if anyone cares to join me.” He marches off down the hallway. Felicity takes a deep breath and stares at the floor.

“Sorry guys,” she says to Cisco and Caitlin. Their faces are more sympathetic than Cooper’s but she knows, in some way, they’re probably hurt too.

“I’ll walk you out,” Caitlin says with a subdued smile. “Meet you in the lab Cisco,” she says as she walks past him to stand with Felicity. He gives her a nod, and then they start, slowly, heading to the front doors.

“Don’t let Cooper get to you,” Caitlin tells her, arms cradling a pair of books as they walk. “He’s pretty uptight about this project and he’s being extra jerky to just about everyone.”

“Yeah,” Felicity says on a sigh, “uptight Cooper is not my favorite Cooper. And I’m sorry that I haven’t been helping out more. It’s just things right now are…complicated.”

“Don’t worry about the project,” she answers, voice soft and understanding. “I have absolutely no doubt that what you’re dealing with at home, or wherever, is important. I just want you to know that I’m here for you, if you need me. We all are.”

“Thanks, Cait,” Felicity says with nothing but sincerity.

When they reach the front doors, Felicity takes a few extra steps forward while Caitlin stays back, books still clutched to her chest. With a small wave back, Felicity pushes the door open and walks out. The divide between her normal life and her new one has never seemed more poetic.

**

John makes his way down the clanging metal staircase in the building he’s claimed as his own. The old steel mill had sat vacant since its closure nearly a decade before and Queen Consolidated, still the building’s legal owner, hadn’t paid it any attention in all that time, as far as John could tell. When he’d first seen this old building, he knew it would be perfect. It was solid, it was empty, and it could be easily fortified. It might not be pretty to look at, but it provided what they needed: a safe place to train, a safe place to hide.

John has been a Watcher for, literally, as long as he can remember. It’s the only life he’s ever known, and he’s known a lot of lifetimes. To say he’d been reluctant to take up the role this time around might be a bit of an understatement, but he’d found his own kind of peace with it now, a new kind of peace, and he was moving forward with hope.

He checks his watch and the time tells him that Felicity is probably on her way over. She hasn’t missed a day since they started working together, throwing herself into the role of the slayer with the dedication he knew she would. In every lifetime he’s had the privilege to know her, Felicity has always been smart and determined. And for as much as he hadn’t wanted to find her, once he did, he relished the feeling of familiarity that came from being with the person he’d shared so much with.

He’s scrolling through news reports on the computer that Felicity set up in their space when he hears the heavy door pull open followed by the sound of steps on the stairs. A quick glance at the time confirms what he already knows, it’s 4:15. When Felicity leaves school and takes the mid-town bus to the Glades, she comes through the door at 4:15, give or take a minute or two. It’s a testament to both Felicity’s punctuality and the surprising efficiency of the transit system.

“Hi,” she says, throwing her half-open backpack onto the floor. A mess of papers peak out of the top. He knows this is a big balancing act for her, finishing high school and being the slayer. He sees how hard she’s pushing herself, he worries about it even. But he hasn’t met a Felicity yet who hasn’t given her all in everything she does, and this one is no exception. Getting her to slow down is always…challenging.

“Hi,” he answers back, watching her walk over to an old set of lockers he moved down into the space. She pulls open the one she has claimed as hers and grabs a set of workout clothes.

“Good day?” he asks.

She shrugs. “It was fine. Hey, can we get pizza for dinner? I know you’re into healthy eating and green things but I could really go for a cheesy, greasy pizza. I think I’ve earned it. And really -”

_Clang_

The sound of feet on their staircase has them both whipping around. John pulls his gun from his holster and aims it with steady hands. Vampires are bad guys, but people should never be underestimated either, and the solider in him is at the ready.

“Woah,” says the kid on the stairs, putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender, “it’s only me.”

It takes a second to place him, but John recognizes the preppy kid they saved at the park last night, the one he, reluctantly, brought to Felicity’s place.

“Oliver?” Felicity asks with disbelief. Then, with slightly more anger, “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I followed you.”

“From school?”

Oliver gives a nod and a shrug.

John shoots a look at Felicity and, with maybe more annoyance than he should, asks, “You didn’t notice him?”

“He’s not a vampire!” Felicity snaps back. “And I was trying to finish my calculus homework! Some of us have a GPA to maintain.”

“Could I come in, or…” Oliver gestures to the gun still aimed at him. John looks to Felicity. When she gives him a quick nod, he lowers his weapon and tucks it back into his holster. Whatever this kid is up to, he’s pretty sure he won’t have to shoot him.

“Why did you follow me Oliver?” Felicity asks, still a bite to her tone, as Oliver lowers his hands and takes a slightly hesitant step down the stairs.

“I told you,” he answers walking down, “I want to help. I want to fight vampires like you do.”

“And I told you,” she answers crossing her arms, “that’s not how it works. I’m the slayer, I do the slaying. You shouldn’t get mixed up in this.”

“But I want to get mixed up in it,” is his reply, and Felicity huffs in frustration. “Besides,” he continues, “you can’t kick me out, this building has my name on it.”

And there’s the smug, rich boy attitude that John expected Oliver Queen to have. It’s only there for a second, before Felicity loses it.

“You think this is some sort of game?” she hollers at him.

“My friend is dead Felicity,” he bites back, “it sure doesn’t feel like a game to me.”

Felicity loses some of her anger at that statement, John can tell by the way her shoulders drop a bit and her forehead relaxes. What comes as some surprise is that Oliver, it seems, can read this change too.

“They’re out there Felicity, these vampires,” his voice is softer and he holds her gaze, “and they’re hurting people. Now that I know that, I want to do some damage.” With a small, self-deprecating laugh he adds, “I’m good with damage.”

“This isn’t your mission,” John pipes in, dragging Oliver’s attention away from Felicity.

“I know,” Oliver answers. “It’s hers, or, well, yours,” he gestures to include the two of them. “I just want to help. Besides,” his gaze flits back to Felicity, “I owe you one.”

It’s on the tip of Felicity’s tongue to say no, John can tell, and really, he should let her. They’ve always worked alone. But there’s something about this idea, about Oliver, that makes him put a hand on Felicity’s arm.

“Give us a minute, will you?” he directs at Oliver. The surprise on Felicity’s face is evident. With a gentle pressure, he turns her around and starts ushering her to a more secluded area of the space. “Don’t touch anything,” he throws over his shoulder at Oliver.

“I’m sorry he found us,” Felicity says when they’ve got a little more privacy. “He asked me at school today about learning to fight and I told him no, but I didn’t think he’d follow me and now he knows where our hideout is and, oh god, do we have to kill him? Because I –“

“Felicity,” he cuts her off, her ramble causing a small, unexpected smile, “we’re not killing him. In fact, what he’s suggesting might not be such a bad idea.”

“What?” Felicity replies, her shock obvious in her voice.

“The vampires are already out there. What could it hurt to teach him to defend himself? Besides,” he shrugs, “maybe he needs this.”

Maybe Felicity needs this too, he thinks, but he doesn’t voice that thought aloud.

“And teaching someone else is a good way for you to train,” he says instead.

“I can’t believe you’re actually suggesting this,” she says.

“Look, I’d be lying if I said this was ever part of my plan, but, yeah, I’m suggesting we do this. But only if it’s ok with you. If it’s not, we tell that kid to take a hike and I scare him so bad he never comes back.” He says the last part around a smile on his face but, if she asked, he’d do it.

She contemplates for another moment, arms crossed and one foot tapping, before the word “Fine,” comes out of her mouth on an exhale. She spins around and marches right over to Oliver, still waiting at the foot of the stairs. He’s got half a foot on her and she has to crane her neck up look him in the eye.

“Ok,” she says, her voice all business, “you can learn. But I won’t go easy on you.”

“Good,” he answers back, not shying away. They stare each other down. Oliver doesn’t give an inch, neither does she. For a minute, John wonders what the hell he’s gotten himself into.

“Well then,” John says with a clap of his hands, finally ending the standoff. “Let’s get started.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to everyone who took the time to leave comments or kudos. You're all great!

Oliver Queen has gotten into his share of trouble. At 8 years old, he wandered away from his group during a school trip to the zoo and ended up inside the monkey habitat. It took two trainers the better part of an hour to chase him out. At 12, he got into the driver’s seat of a Bentley that was idling outside the front door of the Queen Mansion and took it for a spin down his long and winding driveway. The joy ride ended only when he hit a tree. By 14, he had discovered the fun of cutting school to hang out at the mall or in fast food restaurants. And he’d been caught, more than once, swimming naked in a stranger’s pool.

But for all the rebelling he did, for all the rules he didn’t follow, Oliver had, never once, been in an actual fight. That fact had never been more apparent than the first time Felicity put him on the ground.

“Come at me,” she told him. She had traded her school uniform for a pair of yoga pants and a pink t-shirt that hung off one shoulder. She looked tiny, and Oliver, at nearly 6 feet tall, felt like he was towering over her. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to do.

“What, like, hit you?” he asked, slightly horrified at the thought. Felicity, however, was unfazed.

“Swing at me, grab me, whatever,” she answered. “Just attack. Be, you know,” she turned her hands into claws and waved them around a bit, “scary.”

Oliver was pretty sure he raised his eyebrows so high they touched his hairline. He made a few unsure movements, but his discomfort at the whole idea was pretty apparent. For someone who had practically begged Felicity to teach him to fight, he was not off to a good start.

“Ok…” Felicity said when it became clear that they weren’t getting anywhere. “How about I attack you.”

“Ok,” he agreed. “So what are you going to –“

Before Oliver could even finish his sentence, she swung at him, the same left hook that had taken down Max. He tried to dodge, and the momentum of his movement had him falling to the mats, flat on his back. She’d taken him down and she hadn’t even touched him. Lying on the floor, Felicity towered over him, smug look on her face. He heard John sigh as he walked over, stopping next to Felicity to loom over him too.

“Boy,” said John, “you’ve got a lot to learn.”

John was right, of course, he had a long way to go. But Oliver tried, and he practiced, and he learned, and he started picking things up pretty quickly if he did say so himself. He wasn’t a stranger to athletics, Oliver had joined the football team at Starling Prep in freshman year and he was in good shape, he thought, with some muscle and some power behind him. But learning this sort of combat was a challenge and at first the movements felt clumsy and awkward, especially when he was doing them next to Felicity who moved with such effortless grace.

Sometimes they would spar together, Felicity showing him how to move, how to anticipate, and how to use an opponent’s weight against them. She often got the better of him, bringing him down to the mat or stopping a wooden stake just shy of his chest. The first time he actually won a round against her felt like a personal victory. That fact that she had ended up underneath him, well, that felt like something else altogether.

He worked with John on the punching bag, learning to how plant his feet, how to move from the hip, and how to keep his wrist straight. It was pretty obvious that the man was ex-military but he could be surprisingly patient when Oliver was struggling with technique. And Oliver liked to think the two of them were developing a rapport, even if John’s stoic manner made him hard to read sometimes.

Oliver kept the same hours as Felicity did, and they were exhausting.

“You’d think with the strength and the reflexes, one of my super powers would be the ability to stay up late and not be exhausted the next day,” Felicity had said one night, large coffee with extra cream in her hand. 

“I don’t think the 9 to 5 grind was a big problem in the Dark Ages,” was John’s answer.

But it was more than just training. Oliver actually found himself doing more homework than he had in, well, a while. Felicity was always squeezing in assignments when she had a minute, doing math problems while she chugged a bottle of water or finishing up an essay before they started in for the day. And Oliver, surprisingly, found himself following suit. It probably didn’t hurt that Felicity was brilliant enough that she could help him in every subject when he needed it. Felicity just kept amazing him at every turn.

“Who else knows about this?” he’d asked her one night soon after they started working together. They’d just finished going a few rounds against John and both of them were sweaty and slightly out of breath.

“Just us,” she answered. “You, me, John.”

“No one else?” he asked with surprise. “Not your mom or your friends?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“You mean besides the fact the people would think I’m crazy?” she replied, slight smirk on her face.

“Yeah,” he said with a smile he couldn’t help. “Besides that.”

“Once Darhk figures out who I am in this lifetime, he can come after me, and the people I care about. The fewer people who know I’m the slayer, the better.”

“But you told me,” he said, stating the obvious. But there was a genuine curiosity behind his words.

She shrugged. “I stabbed your friend.” She had said it in jest, but there was a tone of seriousness behind her eyes.

“No,” he replied, “you stabbed a vampire that was once my friend. Big difference.”

She gave him a grateful smile, and it kicked up butterflies in his stomach.

The fact that Felicity had told _him_ , trusted him with her secret, let him into this part of her life, it never failed to bring Oliver a sense of amazement. It made him want to be worthy of that trust. It made him want to work as hard as she did. I made him want to be better.

As evenings bled into nights, the focus would shift from training to patrols and Felicity and John would go out into the darkness and actively look for vampires. Sometimes Oliver stayed behind in the foundry after they’d left, sometimes he’d pack up and go home. But he always made sure to check in with Felicity later in the night, to make sure her and John had made it through in one piece.

“Why does it have to be you?” he’d wondered aloud one night as she pulled a toque over her blond ponytail, getting ready to head out and hunt with John. “Don’t take this the wrong way Felicity, but John is huge. I can’t image there being anybody out there that he can’t take down.”

“The lore is very clear on this,” she answered. “If Darhk is going to be defeated, I have to be the one to do it. Slayer power trumps giant biceps, apparently.”

That, Oliver has come to realize, is the ultimate weight on her shoulders. Anyone can stake a vampire, but only the slayer can ultimately defeat the evil. It’s a monumental responsibility. But today, when Oliver picks Felicity up after school and they head out to the foundry together, that’s not what he’s thinking about, and he hopes it’s not what she’s thinking about either. Instead, they chat and laugh, Felicity telling him about her mother’s failed attempt at making chicken cordon bleu, and him telling her about the time Tommy mooned a bus full of cheerleaders. When they drive past the Big Belly and Felicity’s face lights up and she says they should stop for milkshakes, Oliver pulls the car over without a second thought. When they climb down the metal steps to their basement hideout, it’s with milkshakes in hand and smiles on their faces.

“Look what came today!” Felicity says excitedly, shaking a box covered in brown postage paper in John’s general direction.

“Am I supposed to know what it is?” John asks, accepting the milkshake Oliver hands him. “Because you can buy anything on the internet these days. You might have to narrow it down for me.”

“It’s the last of the pieces we need for the comm system,” she answers setting her drink down and slicing through the box’s brown paper. “Now we’ll be able to communicate remotely while we’re on patrol.” She moves over to the computer system that has become progressively more elaborate. “I can even tie in the GPS tracking on our phones so we can see our positions in real time.”

“Are you saying you don’t want me on patrol anymore?” John asks in a teasing tone. Felicity shoots him a smile.

“I always want you out there with me,” she answers. “But we both know I’ll have to fly solo at some point.”

Oliver and John leave her to her work, the sound of her fingers on the keyboard becoming part of the background noise of the space. Oliver finishes his milkshake then changes out of his school uniform into some shorts and a t-shirt that’s become a little snugger since he started packing on some more muscle. He starts off on the punching bag, working up a bit of a sweat, before he moves over to the chin up bar and starts a set. When he jumps down he notices that the sound of typing has stopped and Felicity is looking at him with an expression on her face that he could almost describe as wanting. Almost as quickly as he sees it, she shakes her head and looks away. He can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips as he files that bit of information away in his brain.

“That should do it,” she says sometime later, spinning around in her chair. “Now all we need is a test run.”

“Well maybe we could try them out when you and Oliver head out on patrol,” John replies.

Oliver’s double take must be fairly comical, because John actually huffs a laugh before coming over to clap him on the shoulder.

“I think you’re ready,” John tells him. “And if you’re not, Felicity will save your ass.”

Twenty minutes later, Oliver is stuffing wooden stakes into the pocket of his green hoodie with more nerves racing through him than he’d like to admit. He knows he’s not doing a great job of hiding it when Felicity gives him a reassuring smile and tells him “You’ll do great.”

She hands him an earpiece and he slips it in on their way up the stairs. When the door slams shut behind them Felicity turns her unit on, and he can hear the slight static of an open line in his ear.

“Can you hear me John?” she asks.

“Loud and clear,” Oliver hears through his earpiece.

“Cool,” says Felicity. “We’ll walk a few blocks and test again.”

“Copy that,” is John’s answer.

“Shall we?” says Felicity. Oliver takes a breath, then gives her a nod, and together they head off into the cool night air.

“So where are we going?” Oliver asks. The neighbourhood they’re in is deserted and their footsteps echo off the brick walls of mostly empty warehouse buildings.

“We’ll head to 14th street,” she answers. “There’ve been some missing persons reports filed from that area. It’s probably worth checking out.”

Inside his pants pocket, Oliver’s phone buzzes against his leg. He pulls it out and sees Tommy’s name on the screen, before stuffing it back into his pocket.

“Hey, isn’t your robotics competition coming up?” Oliver says after half a block of silence. He had seen a poster at school just this morning and he knew Felicity had been working with her friends on an entry.

“Yeah,” she answers, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “But I don’t think I’m going to go.”

Oliver’s phone vibrates again. This time he reads the message Tommy sent _– I’ve got a keg of beer and half the senior class over here. Where are you?_ He swipes it away without replying.

“Why not?” he asks instead, turning his attention to Felicity more fully. “You’ve been working on that project for months.”

“With everything going on I just,” she sighs and shrugs, “I just don’t have the time. Training, patrolling, it’s more important.”

“Felicity I don’t think anybody is going to argue that you’re not giving this slayer thing your all. You can take a night off.”

Against his leg his phone vibrates again, this time with the insistence of a phone call. “Dammit Tommy,” he says under his breath. He digs out his phone out and hits decline before setting it to ‘Do not disturb’.

“Everything ok?” Felicity asks gesturing to his phone with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, it’s just Tommy. Apparently he really needs help getting through a keg of beer.”

“Ah,” she says in understanding.

“You don’t have to miss your competition Felicity,” he says returning to what, in his opinion, is the more important topic.

“You’re missing Tommy’s party,” she points out.

“This is different. I’m being promoted tonight,” he says, half in jest. “From trainee to potential vampire hunter. Provided I don’t become someone’s midnight snack.”

She bumps her shoulder into his arm. “I won’t let anyone eat you,” she says, looking up at him.

Once they’ve walked another block, Felicity checks in with John and finds the communication system is working perfectly. And on a computer screen in the foundry basement, Oliver and Felicity show up as two yellow dots on a map of the city. They keep moving, Felicity directing their path in a way that Oliver doesn’t quite understand but trusts nonetheless. Before he knows it, they’re standing at the edge of a darkened park and Oliver is surprised to see it’s the same one Max ambushed him in what feels like a lifetime ago. After a second, Felicity recognizes it too.

“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t know we’d end up here.” She cringes a little then, and holds onto her side. “But this is definitely the place. You ready?”

Sliding his hand into the pocket of his hoodie and wrapping it around one of the wooden stakes, he nods. Together, they cross into the darkness.

There are only two of them, both women with platinum blond hair that practically glows against the shadows. Oliver and Felicity let the women drawn them off the beaten path. When one grabs at him, Oliver dodges and whips the stake out of his pocket, holding it high in the air as if he’s waiting to bring it down. When the vamp lunges for it, hitting and clawing at him, he realizes his mistake. Before Oliver knows it, she lands a blow that not only hurts like hell, but has the stake flying out of his hand and landing with a dull thud somewhere on the grass behind him. He fights the instinct to turn and look for it, instead keeping his focus on the vampire in front of him. Her face is snarling and her fangs are out and Oliver plants his feet and sends out his right fist, the punch catching her in the jaw enough to make her stumble. Quick as he can, he pulls his second stake out of his sweater pocket and, with as much force as he can muster, aims for her heart. The vampire disappears into a cloud of dust.

Oliver stands for a second, staring in partial shock at the dust at his feet, before his brain kicks in again and he spins around in a frantic search for Felicity. He spots her a few feet away, hands in her pockets, smiling broadly at him.

“Did you - ?” he starts to ask.

“Oh yeah,” she answers. “I took care of her friend. And you, Oliver Queen, just took down your first monster.”

He can’t help the smile the breaks out over his face then, or the laugh that huffs out in relief. Felicity walks over and picks his stake up from the ground, holding it out for him to grab. He takes it from her, and the most random thought exits his mouth.

“I punched a girl,” he says.

“No,” Felicity tells him, linking her arm through his. “You punched a vampire that was once a girl. Big difference.”

She rests her chin against his shoulder to look up at him, and Oliver’s heart beats faster in a way that has nothing to do with the vampires they just fought.

“Come on,” she says after a moment, pulling back enough to tug him into moving. “We should bag a few more before the night is over.”

She leads him out of the park and back onto the street. He has no idea where they’re headed next and, frankly, he doesn’t care to ask. Because at this point, he’s fairly certain he would follow her anywhere.

**

“Oh, come on!” Cooper slams his palms against the steering wheel of his car as it chugs and sputters. He barely gets it pulled over to the curb before it stops moving altogether, steam unfurling from underneath the closed hood.

“Fracking piece of junk,” he mutters under his breath, pushing open the driver’s door with a squeak. He’s been trying to keep the old Tempo going for the last 5 months, and it’s been an uphill battle.

It’s late, and the street is dark and deserted. He moves to the front of the car to open the hood, swatting away the cloud of steam that billows out. He’s both surprised and not surprised to find that his car has managed to overheat in 60 degree weather. He sighs in frustration. Nothing, it seems, has been going right for him lately.

“Car trouble?”

The voice comes out of nowhere and startles him. He spins around, heart pounding, to find a woman standing in the middle of the street. She’s got long, dark hair and dark red lips, and Cooper had no idea where she might have come from.

“Uh, yeah,” he answers somewhat awkwardly. “But it’s fine. Nothing I can’t handle.” He turns his attention back to the car, thinking that will be the end of it. Instead, he jumps a little when her voice comes from beside him.

“Maybe I can help,” she says. She’s less than a foot away, leaning a hip on the side of his car. How she could move so fast, Cooper had no idea.

Cooper knows he should say no, both because he doesn’t need her help and because there is nothing about this that isn’t all kinds of weird. His brain even _tries_ to say no. But there’s something about this women, about how close she’s standing and how she’s looking into his eyes, that had his head nodding and his feet moving no matter how loud his rational thoughts are screaming at him to stop. As the minutes tick by, it gets easier and easier to just give in and before long, the trance Cooper finds himself in is almost peaceful. By the time that the bite comes, he’s so far under her spell, that he doesn’t even scream.


	8. Chapter 8

Felicity stands outside Starling Prep looking, she’s sure, as awkward as she feels. Lit up at night, standing against the darkness, the old brick building looks even more stately than it does during the day, an undeniable icon of old money. Never before has Felicity felt intimated by this place. From the first time she saw it, it spoke to her of learning and opportunity, and she wanted nothing more than to be a part of it. But right now, standing on the flagstone path as people stream around her, she feels conflicted. She wants to be here, with her friends, participating in the competition they worked so long for. The robot they built was both an exciting challenge and a labour of love, and she wants to be part of this for so many reasons. But she also feels guilt. Her life, it isn’t this simple anymore. How can she take the time to fight with silly robots, to have fun, when she knows now that her biggest responsibility lies elsewhere?

Two nights ago on patrol, Oliver told her she should come. Back at the foundry, John had seconded the idea. “If it’s important to you then you should go,” he told her. “Have fun for a night.” When he saw the unsure look on her face he added, “You’re still allowed fun, Felicity.”

She’d gone back and forth on her decision more times than she could count. In the end, it was a text from Oliver that solidified her choice. Sitting alone in her apartment, pushing the remains of a microwave dinner around with her fork and glancing back and forth at her shoes sitting by the front door, her phone buzzed and Oliver’s face popped up on the screen along with one simple word: Go.

She had smiled to herself then, amused by the fact that Oliver seemed to know exactly what she was doing, how she was feeling, even though he was miles away. So she’d texted her own one word reply, “Ok”, slipped on her shoes, and headed out the door. She’d felt good about it, she’d been happy. But now that she’s here, with a lump in her stomach, she’s not so sure.

“Felicity!” she hears behind her, and when she turns, she sees Oliver jogging up the path towards her. He’s wearing cargo shorts and his favorite green hoodie and there’s a smile on his face that warms up her insides and seems to automatically untwist the knot in her stomach.

“Oliver,” she says when he’s next to her, her voice surprised but pleased. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugs, looking almost bashful. It’s an expression Felicity never expected to see on the likes of Oliver Queen and she finds it unfairly adorable.

“Thought I’d come check it out,” he answers. “Maybe cheer you on.”

She’s touched, all sorts of wonderful feelings bubbling up through her chest. She smiles and tells him with absolute sincerity, “I’m glad you did.”

He smiles back. “Then let’s go.”

It’s easier, somehow, to take those last steps up to the school with Oliver at her side. As they climb up the front stairs, she realizes how easy it would be to reach over and take his hand. But something like that would be decidedly un-platonic. And that’s all they are, right? Platonic?

They walk in comfortable silence towards the gymnasium. It’s teeming with people and the sound of hundreds of voices echo around the large space. Along the front wall, an elaborate obstacle course has been set up and dozens of teams wait nearby, making last minute adjustments to their entries or steering their robots across the floor. It takes Felicity a minute to spot Cisco, excited look on his face and remote control in hand, spinning C-4PO in slow circles.

“I guess you need to be over there,” Oliver says tilting his head towards Cisco and her friends. “I’ll be watching from the bleachers.” 

She nods. “Thanks for coming,” she says before he walks away.

“Anytime,” he says around a soft smile. “Good luck Felicity.”

They make their way in opposite directions, Felicity keeping her attention on Cisco as she makes her way through the crowd. The look on his face, the excitement and joy, stirs up some of those feeling in her too. As she gets closer, she can hear Caitlin’s laugh, and she watches as Cisco hands her the remote and she starts steering their creation, huge smile on her face. Felicity has missed this. She’s missed _them_. It makes her want to hold on to this bit of normalcy for as long as she can.

“Felicity!” Caitlin says when she notices her, her voice shining with delight. “You made it!” She dashes over and wraps Felicity in a tight hug.

“I’m glad I could,” she answers honestly. “C-4PO is looking good.”

“You bet he is,” Cisco says. “Spin him around, Cait. Let Felicity get a good look at him.”

He looks more finished than last time Felicity saw him, with most of his circuitry covered by aluminum housing that’s painted bright red.

“Nice colour choice,” Felicity tells them.

“I wanted to add a lightning bolt but I didn’t have time,” Cisco tells her. She huffs a laugh.

“I didn’t have time to finish this either,” he says, pulling a black box out of his pocket.

“Your Sonic Screech?” Felicity asks. She holds her hand out and Cisco puts the gadget in her palm.

“Sonic Boom,” he corrects her as she inspects his handiwork. “I still think if Cooper had worked on it with me, instead of going the boring route with the retractable arm, we could have given C-4PO an awesome super power.”

“Where is Cooper, anyway?” she asks.

As if on cue, she sees Cooper’s tall frame cutting through the crowd. His dark hair is falling into his eyes and he’s wearing a black leather jacket she’s never seen before. When he stops a few feet from her, her nerves kick up a notch. From the look on his face, she’s expecting some snarky comment about her absence, like a sarcastic “Felicity, nice of you to finally join us” or some complaint about how her code wasn’t up to snuff. Instead, all she gets is “Felicity.”

That surprises her. And while she supposes she should be grateful for his lack of attitude, something about it makes her uneasy.

An announcement sounds, cutting through the din of countless conversations. “All teams, please make your way to your designated positions.”

They move, the four of them, to their assigned spot. They’d drawn a number for the first round of competition, so their robot would be one of the first through the course. When Cisco enthusiastically asks if he can be the one to pilot their robot, she expects Cooper to make a case for himself, but he barely says a word.

As they wait, Cisco and Caitlin happily keep their attention on the course in front of them, watching the robots move through, cheering with the crowd and discussing each entry’s attributes. But Felicity just can’t get into it. There’s this feeling she has that she just can’t shake. Her attention keeps getting drawn back to Cooper. Something about him seems…off. He had been so invested in their project, spending more hours on it than anyone, but right now, he isn’t really even paying attention. Instead, he seemed agitated, his focus flitting around the space constantly.

“Coop?” she says, trying to get his attention.

His head snaps over to look at her. Something about her seems to capture his interest because he actually looks at her, focuses on her, more intently than he has all night. The smirk on his face, look in his eyes, seem almost…predatory.

A cramp that she can’t ignore twists her insides and, suddenly, she knows. The twinge she’s been having all night, that uneasy feeling in her stomach, she’d put it down to nerves. But it was this, it was Cooper. He’s a monster.

Felicity tries her hardest to school her expression. It’s taking everything she’s got not to let the horror she’s feeling on the inside show on her face, in her body language. He can’t know that she knows. As far as Cooper is concerned, Felicity Smoak is just a regular girl who should have no idea that monsters like him are out there. If he had even an inkling of who she was, he could run off and tell Darhk. He could disappear into this crowd and out into the night before she has a chance to stop him.

“What?” is Cooper’s impatient question to her after beats of silence.

“I, uh,” she starts, unsure of what to say, but then the people in front of her shuffle forward and she blurts out “I think it’s our turn.”

“Goody,” he says, a twisted grin on his face that makes her blood run cold.

In what is a bit of a relief, Cooper doesn’t bolt. He stays with them the while their robot runs through the course, although that’s not what’s keeping his attention. Instead he scans the crowd, eyes moving over the hundreds of people here. He’s hunting, Felicity realizes, looking for either someone to eat or someone to turn. She doesn’t know which one would be worse.

Cisco and Caitlin are just an arm’s reach in front of them, happy and laughing. They high-five when C-4PO crosses the finish line, then spin around to include her and Cooper.

“Did you see that?” Caitlin exclaims excitedly. “He did perfectly! He didn’t even stumble on the ramp.”

“Uh, yeah –“ Felicity starts, trying to fake an enthusiasm that she definitely does not feel.

“And what about those tight corners,” Cisco jumps in, equally excited. “I knew tweaking the wheel base would pay off.”

Caitlin and Cisco go back and forth in animated conversation, asking her questions, looking for answers that Felicity tries her best to give while keeping her “everything’s fine” face on. Since their robot is done its run, they get shuffled away from the course to another part of the gym and somewhere, in the talking and the questions and the walking, Felicity realizes that Cooper has slipped away.

Panic rises in her chest. She tries to spot him, but there are so many people and, being on the shorter side, her vantage point isn’t great. She needs to be higher. She spins around and notices the registration table set up about ten feet away. She’s there in a few strides, leaping up onto it without missing a beat. The move pays off as she sees Cooper push open the gym’s outer door and head out into the night. Without a second thought, she jumps down and follows him.

Once she’s out of the gym, it’s quiet. The football field is empty and dark. It’s not obvious which way Cooper has gone, so she just picks a direction and starts moving, hoping she’ll be able to hone in on his location. It isn’t long before she hears footsteps behind her, running over the grass. She spins around ready to kick out when she hears “Woah, Felicity, it’s only me.”

“Oliver,” she says in relief, but it’s short lived. She has to keep moving. She has to find Cooper.

“What’s going on?” Oliver asks, falling into step beside her. “I saw you on the table then you ran for the door.”

“Cooper’s been turned,” she tells him without slowing her pace.

“What?” Oliver says in disbelief. “Like, your friend Cooper? He’s a –“

“Yeah,” she says cutting him off.

“So what are you going to do?” he asks somewhat cautiously.

“I’m going to stop him.”

They’re nearing the end of the field, the light and commotion going on inside Starling Prep feeling very far away. The only thing past the far goalpost is the grounds keeping shed, a squat brick building that looks like a bunker. On quick glance, the area looks empty. But the cramp in her gut tells her he’s near, and there are plenty of shadows to hide in.

“Cooper?” she calls out.

“Hey babe.”

She looks up to the roof of the outbuilding and sees Cooper step into view and out to the edge. Effortlessly, he jumps down and lands almost without a sound a couple of yards ahead of her.

“Miss me?” he asks, face leering. “Or are you hanging out with this guy now?” He swings his head in Oliver’s direction. “A dumb pretty boy.” Disdain colours his words as he sizes Oliver up. Oliver doesn’t flinch under the scrutiny, he just glares right back, eyes narrowing and jaw clenched, before Cooper directs his attention back to her. “I expected more from you, Felicity.”

Felicity swallows past the lump in her throat. She’s faced a lot of vampires in her short time as the slayer, but never one that had once been her friend. It’s surreal. And even though she understands the mechanics of it, knows, in broad strokes, what must have gone down, she still finds herself asking, “What happened to you?”

“I was chosen,” he replies, stretching his arms wide. “Chosen for power. Chosen for immortality. You can be chosen too, Felicity.” He steps towards her, his stare intense. It makes her skin crawl.

“Imagine it babe. Everyone who’s ever looked down on us, all those rich snobs who thought they were better, we can have them on the run. It can be you and me, forever.”

This isn’t the Cooper she knew. This isn’t the guy who would stay up late with her watching old movies, who would help her solve coding problems and laugh at her silly jokes. This was all the worst parts of him, all his angry and resentful thoughts and feeling brought to the surface and given voice. To see him like this, to know he was turned into this, it was devastating.

“I’m not your babe,” is her cold reply.

Anger takes over his expression at her rejection. “Well in that case,” he says, his voice growling and mean, “you can be lunch.”

Cooper’s face transforms to its vampire visage, yellow-eyed and fanged, and two other vampires step out of the shadows to flank him. For a beat, the five of them all stand there, holding their ground, before the two newcomers move past Cooper and come in for the attack, one headed for Oliver, and the other for Felicity. She’s unarmed and, to the best of her knowledge, Oliver is too. Without stakes, they’re going to have to improvise.

When the vamp comes towards her, Felicity hits first, her fist catching him in the jaw hard enough to make him stumble back. She tries to follow up with a kick, but he recovers too fast and grabs her leg instead, sending her off balance and onto the grass. He comes to stand over her, but she rolls out of the way. As she gets to her feet again, something in the grass catches her attention.

She can hear Oliver beside her, trading blows with the other vamp. She trusts that he can take care of it. As her attacker comes in for another shot, she dodges around him, takes two quick strides, then slides across the grass like she’s headed for home plate. Her hand touches what she hoped would be there and grips it hard; a shovel with a long wooden handle.

She gets to her feet again and swings, the metal blade of the shovel hitting the vamp across the head and sending him to the ground. Without hesitation, she raises up her knee and brings the handle down hard across her thigh, breaking the wood into two jagged pieces.

“Oliver!” she shouts, taking a second to direct her attention to him. When he’s got an opening, she tosses half of the broken handle his way and then stakes the vampire in front of her with the other. When she looks up, Oliver is picking up his makeshift stake from a pile of dust and Cooper is still standing where she left him. Cooper’s face has morphed back into its more human form and is sporting a somewhat surprised expression. Slowly, she starts to walk towards him, broken stick in her hand.

“You’ve learned some new tricks,” he says to her as she approaches, voice still full of confidence and attitude. “Is that what you’ve been up too lately?”

Felicity doesn’t want to talk, she doesn’t want to draw this out. It’s hard enough to have to look at Cooper’s face, knowing what she has to do. So she just moves. His vampire agility lets him dodge her first few blows, but it’s clear that this power is new to him and he doesn’t quite know how to use it yet. And for all the cockiness human Cooper could have, he never did learn how to fight. It isn’t long before she lands a kick to his stomach that sends him ass first to the ground. He’s stunned for an instant, and Felicity can see a familiar expression forming on his face. It’s the one he gets when he’s figured out a problem, his lightbulb moment.

“You’re the slayer,” he says.

Standing over him, she hesitates, but for only a second.

“I’m sorry Coop,” she says, then she stakes him in the chest.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry all for the late posting. It is summer, it is camping season, I have been off the grid.  
> Hope you think Chapter 9 was worth the wait :)

There are parts about the night Felicity killed Cooper that she doesn’t exactly remember. She has no solid memories of leaving the school, of getting home. There are only snippets of feelings and flashes of vision. She remembers the feeling of being frozen, like she’d forgotten how to move her limbs, and the feeling of Oliver’s hand on her arm as he gently tugged her away. She remembers her face was wet, from tears she didn’t know she was crying, and pressing her nose into the soft cotton of Oliver’s sweater. She knows the window of the car was cool when she rested her forehead against it, but recalls nothing else about the drive that would have taken at least twenty minutes. And she remembers the smell of leather as John wrapped her in his big arms and held her more tightly than she’s even been held before.

Her logical brain knows, now, that she was in shock. And for as much as she doesn’t clearly remember the after, there are parts about the before that will be forever seared into her brain. The hungry look in Cooper’s eyes, the hardness of his voice, the shock on his face when she staked him.

“He wasn’t Cooper anymore,” both Oliver and John take the time to tell her. Each time she answers “I know” and, on some rational level, she does recognize the truth of it. But then she remembers what it felt like to drive the piece of wood through Cooper’s chest and her feelings become a lot more muddy. It’s easy to find ways to blame herself. She could have warned Cooper about what was out there, she thinks, or worked harder on patrols. If vampires are still out there turning people, then she’s not doing her job. It’s an unhelpful chain of thought, but sometimes, she just can’t turn it off.

Cooper’s car was found half submerged in a river about 30 miles out of town. How or why it had gotten there Felicity had no idea, but the reigning police theory about Cooper’s disappearance was that he must have lost control and ended up underwater, his body taken away by the current. Even though it wasn’t the truth, it was the closest thing to closure Cooper’s family was going to get, and in a weird way Felicity was grateful for that.

News spread around Starling Prep that a student was missing and presumed dead but, for the most part, things there carried on as usual. People still cheered at football games and talked excitedly about the upcoming spring formal. Cooper wasn’t someone that everybody knew, their group had been tight knit. Cisco and Caitlin were shocked and upset, and they reached out to her so they could give and get comfort together, but Felicity found it really hard to be around them. It was too much to lie, too hard to pretend that she didn’t know what happened, too long to be drowning in guilt. So she told them the only truth she could, that she wanted to be alone right now. And as much as she’s sure it hurt their feelings, they respected her request and gave her some space.

She pushes herself harder on patrols, staying out later, always trying to slay just one more vampire before calling it a night. Oliver always sticks it out with her, not quitting until she does, even though it’s pretty clear he and John aren’t entirely on board. Some nights more than others they press her to slow down. And while she’d never admit it, sometimes she relies on them to rein her in.

“Felicity,” Oliver had said one night, exhaustion in his voice, “we’ve got school in six hours. Let’s call it a night.” They’d just taken down a trio of vamps outside the club district, a favorite spot of hers to patrol. It was always fruitful.

She shook her head as she bent down to pick up her stake. “I can bag a few more,” she replied.

“Felicity,” he’d answered, exasperation creeping into his tone, “we’re not going to wipe out every vampire in the city tonight. Let’s go home, before one of us gets sloppy and gets eaten. Probably me.”

She’d looked up at him, prepared to argue, but then his voice softened and his eyes bored into hers and he said “Please” in a way that made her heart lurch and her resolve crumble. When she nodded slightly and said “Ok”, Oliver had let out an unsubtle sigh of relief. That, more than anything, let her know that she might have crossed over the line of good sense and into obsessive territory. And, in that instant anyway, she could admit to herself that she was having a hard time differentiating the two.

She’s thankful for Oliver and John, to have people in her life that she doesn’t have to pretend with. But for as much common ground as they share, she doesn’t think they completely understand what it means to be the slayer. Losing Cooper, losing a friend, made the weight of the responsibility she carries so incredibly clear to her. It’s her burden, and it’s one they won’t be able to share with her even if they want to. The thought of that, it’s isolating.

When she isn’t hunting, she focuses on her studies. When she isn’t doing either, she’s sleeping, the sort of bone tired, dead to the world sleep that can only come from running herself to her limits. Felicity is going to graduate from Starling Prep; not only because, at the last semester of senior year, she’s so close to the finish line that she can taste it, but because Donna Smoak uprooted her whole life to move to Starling City and give her daughter this chance. Felicity refuses to let her down. But after that? Well, she isn’t so sure anymore.

Two months ago, her path had seemed so clear: high school, to MIT, to the technology industry. But that was before she learned that the world was a bigger place than she realized, and that her role in it was different from anything she’d ever imagined. It seemed trivial, now, to think of college; or to think of dances or football games or math olympics. People were dying, there was evil to defeat, and fate, it seemed, had given her the short straw. She was the one who had to deal with it. That was her destiny. Everything else would have to wait.

**

Oliver runs a hand through his hair as he sits in the back row of his civics class. He tries to pay attention, he even jots down a few notes, but his mind, for the most part, is elsewhere. Not only is he tired from the new, extended hours Felicity has decided she needs to keep as slayer, but his side aches from the vampire who belted him across his ribs with a hockey stick. Joke was on that guy, though, when not a minute later Oliver smashed the stick to pieces and staked him with it. Oliver considers that poetic justice.

He watches the clock more than he should, the seconds and minutes ticking away painfully slow. As demanding as it’s been lately, he still looks forward to being with Felicity and John, fighting for their cause. He may not have the onus of destiny or the weight of a dozen lifetimes behind him, but their crusade has given him a satisfaction and a purpose that he’s never found anywhere else.

He also knows that Felicity is struggling right now. She’s grieving her friend, feeling responsible, wanting to do something, anything, to make it right. He helps when he can, in ways that she’ll let him. He trains with her, giving her somewhere to put her focus and vent her frustration, and he patrols with her, staying out until all hours of the night staking more vampires than they’ve ever staked before. But aside from that first night, when she pressed herself into his chest and shook with silent tears, she hasn’t wanted comfort. Instead, she’s pulled away and their friendship, which had been so easy, and comfortable, and _right_ , now feels almost stilted and incomplete. He knows his feelings for her run pretty deep. They’ve gone past admiration and awe and friendship, encompassing those things into something… more. He’s often wondered if she could feel the same way, there have definitely been times when he thought that she might.

At his desk, Oliver heaves an audible sigh. The clock, which he dares to steal another glance at, tells him he’s only got 10 more minutes to go. He rubs a hand over his face, two days of stubble scratching his palm. With all this extra vampire slaying, he hasn’t taken the time to shave. But the 5 o’clock shadow look is growing on him. Offhandedly, he wonders what Felicity would think.

Finally, the bell rings, and Oliver wastes no time slamming is notebook shut and heading for the door. The hallways are filled with people, students like him all clamoring to the door. He walks through the crowd with purpose, heading for his locker. He’s just rolling his lock through the combination when he hears behind him “Hey! Ollie!”

He knows the voice right away, and a few seconds later Tommy is clapping him on the back and sidling up beside him.

“Geeze, man,” Tommy says, “where are you headed so fast?”

Oliver shrugs and puts on a half-smile. “Just anxious to get out of here,” he answers.

“I hear that,” Tommy says, leaning back against the wall while Oliver shuffles books in and out of his backpack. When he’s done, he slams the locker door shut and turns to walk away with a “See you later Tommy.” He only makes it a few steps before Tommy is following after him.

“Woah, Ollie, hang on a minute.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Oliver stops. When Tommy catches up he says, “What are you avoiding me or something?” In true Tommy fashion, he’s smiling when he says it, his never-may-care attitude on full display. Still, Oliver can’t blame him for asking the question.

Oliver has known Tommy for as long as he can remember. Their parents were friends and they ran in the same social circles. Tommy and Oliver always attended the same schools, got dragged to the same uppity events, and often got into the same trouble. After Tommy’s mom died and he and his dad grew apart, Tommy spent more time with the Queens than he did with his own family. Tommy is his best friend, and Oliver loves him like a brother. But yes, he has absolutely been avoiding him.

“Of course not,” Oliver lies. “What’s up?”

“Well, I just had class with Tucker. His parents are out of town and he’s planning on having some people over tonight. Wanna come hang? Keep in mind, his parents have an indoor pool and some top shelf liquor. _And_ I have it on good authority that more than a couple cheerleaders will be attending, including one Laurel Lance...”

Oliver tries is hardest to suppress his frustrated sigh. This is precisely the reason he’s been avoiding Tommy.

“I can’t,” he replies. “I promised Thea a movie night.”

Tommy eyes him skeptically. “You’ve been doing that a lot lately,” he retorts.

Oliver just shrugs.

“Ok,” Tommy says, trying a different track, “why don’t you movie with Thea early and come by when you’re done?”

“Nah, I think I’m just gonna stay in and chill.”

Tommy looks at him like he’s grown another head.

“What the hell is up with you lately?” Tommy’s tone is sharp and it raises Oliver’s hackles. “I haven’t seen you out in _forever_ , you’ve blown off football practice, Laurel says you haven’t talked to her in weeks -”

“Laurel broke up with me,” Oliver interjects.

“Yeah, but she always takes you back.”

“Well maybe that’s not what I want this time.”

As soon as the words are out of Oliver’s mouth, he recognizes the truth of them. Laurel isn’t what he wants, isn’t _who_ he wants, not anymore.

“I don’t get it,” says Tommy. “You’ve chased after Laurel since you were 13. You don’t seem interested in having _any_ fun, you’ve basically abandoned all your friends, and I’ve never seen you do so much homework in my life. What’s going on? What’s changed?”

Oliver understands Tommy’s questions, sympathizes even, but he doesn’t know what to say. How can you describe to someone that, basically, your whole world has changed? And that the things you used to think were so crucial you realize now are just…not?

“It’s just…” Oliver struggles to find the right words, “there are bigger things out there, man.”

They stand in silence for a beat, a look on Tommy’s face that Oliver can’t really read. This time, when Oliver moves to walk away, Tommy doesn’t stop him.

**

Oliver pushes open the heavy metal door on the side of the old Queen Consolidated foundry with two paper coffee cups balanced in his hands. As he makes his way down the steps, he’s unsurprised to find Felicity and John already there. Since they started going double time on the patrols, coffee has become Oliver’s new best friend and today when he stopped to pick one up, he thought he’d take a chance and get one for Felicity too.

Felicity is sitting at the computer station she set up, fingers flying over the keyboard while she looks back and forth between the two monitors. Improving their surveillance capacity has been another borderline obsession for her in the last little while, and she’s spent the last week or so trying to surreptitiously gain access to Starling City’s traffic camera network. He moves in her direction, turning his attention briefly to John, who’s going a few rounds with the punching bag, before coming up beside her and setting the coffee down on her desk. When she stops for a second to look up at him and smile, Oliver knows he made the right call.

Oliver sets himself up on a nearby table and gets out some homework. For a while, they both sit in a comfortable silence, talking sips of coffee, immersed in their work. Then, to his slight surprise, Felicity starts to chat. She asks what he’s working on, which leads to talk about classes, and on and on until they’re talking about the most random things. And for the first time since Cooper died, they’re back in their old rhythm. Oliver’s heart swells. So when, somehow, their conversation twists and turns its way around to Starling Prep’s upcoming spring formal, maybe, subconsciously, Oliver takes it as a sign.

“Cisco and Caitlin want to go,” she tells him. “They think I should go with them.”

“Maybe you should,” he answers. “Or, maybe, we could go together…”

Once the words are out of his mouth, Oliver almost can’t believe he said them. But he means them, and suddenly the idea of holding Felicity close while they dance in slow circles is all he can think about.

“What?” Her voice is a little disbelieving and she looks at him like he’s crazy. “There are vampires to slay Oliver, I have a job to do. I can’t waste my time at a dance.”

There’s something about her surprise, about the way she says it, like the idea of ever doing something outside of slaying vampires is an impossible concept, that sticks in Oliver’s side. And suddenly, it’s about so much more than just this dance.

“Look, Felicity,” he starts, a little sharper than before, “go to the dance or don’t, but you can’t keep this up. You can’t keep up this pace.”

She looks at him with genuine confusion, tinged, he’s sure, with a little bit of anger. “What do you mean?”

“You never stop. You go to school in the morning, hunt monsters all night, sleep for 5 hours, and repeat. Over and over again.”

“I’m the slayer,” she says, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms. “It’s my job.”

“It might be your job,” Oliver answers, pleading for her to understand, “but it’s not all you are.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she snaps, getting up from her seat and putting some distance between them. But Oliver isn’t going to let her walk away from this.

“I’m here every day Felicity, working just as hard as you,” he answers, following her until she stops and turns back to him. “And I’ve lost a friend too. I think I understand at least a little what it’s like.”

Felicity shakes her head. “This isn’t a choice for me Oliver,” she says, voice stern. “When you get board of this, when you want to move on, you can. But this is my life, my responsibility, forever.”

Oliver blinks at her, shocked to silence for a moment. To hear her talk about him leaving, as if it’s only a matter of time before the irresponsible rich boy gets distracted by the next shiny thing or short skirt and runs off, it hurts. And it raises his own anger.

“You think I’m just going to bail on you?” he retorts, the sting of her insult apparent. “Turn my back on all this and pretend it doesn’t exist? Is that what you think of me?”

“What? Oliver, no-“ she starts, but it’s his turn to shake his head. Feelings hurt, he’s not interested in hearing any more right now. Instead, he lashes out.

“If you think you’re so alone in this Felicity, fine, then be alone.”

He moves away from her then, walking with purpose to the metal staircase. As he moves up the steps, he swears he can feel her eyes on his back, but he doesn’t stop, not until he walks out into the deserted yard and the door clangs shut behind him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to everyone who took the time to read, comment, or leave kudos. You all make my day!  
> I'll be off the grid again for a bit (summer here is short, gotta get out while you can!) but the last installments are on the way, I promise. We're almost at the end of this ride. Thanks so much for taking it with me.  
> A couple of notes about this chapter: (1) I know nothing about sonic devices and (2) I steal a bit of dialogue, I'm sure you'll recognize it :)

Smoke swirls around Felicity’s face as she melts down the last bits of solder she needs to the circuit board. It’s a meticulous process, but she’s always been good at it, always had steady hands. Score another one for slayer superpowers.

She’s been tinkering with Cisco’s directed sonic device for the last little while. It’s become her latest pet project, undertaken to help keep her mind off things. And the distraction works pretty well, some of the time. Other times, she notices how quiet the foundry is.

Since their fight last week, Oliver hasn’t come by after school. She’d made him angry, she knows that, and she had been angry too. But she hadn’t meant to say that he would flake on her. She wanted to apologize, had planned to when he came in the next night, but he didn’t come. Not that night, or the next or the next. And her heart sank.

His absence was painfully obvious. Things felt quieter, lonelier. She missed hearing about his day, about his life, and she missed sharing her day with him. Talking with Oliver had always been so easy. She missed making him laugh, he had such a great laugh, and she missed the way his whole ridiculously handsome face would light up when he was happy. But fighting monsters was dangerous and demanding, and Oliver didn’t have to make that sacrifice. He was entitled to a normal life, and Felicity wouldn’t drag him back into this, no matter how much she might want him here, no matter how she might feel about him. Because somewhere, in the midst of growing and learning and fighting together, Felicity can admit to herself that her feelings for Oliver have sailed way past platonic.

So she tinkers, and she trains, and she slays, and she tries not to think about how Oliver made her happy, made her heart flutter, brought out the best parts of her. Or that, maybe, they brought out the best parts of each other.

“What are you working on?”

Ten weeks ago, a voice popping up behind her while she focused on a project would have scared the crap out of her. But now, she knew John was there, could feel all the tiny changes in the space around her that happened when someone approached. Sometimes, she has to admit, being the slayer is actually pretty cool.

“Cisco’s Sonic Boom,” she answers, snapping the casing back together. John gives her a confused look.

“Cisco tried to build a device for our robot that would let it use a sonic wave to knock down a block wall,” she elaborates, putting the gadget into John’s palm. He looks it over curiously.

“Did it work?” he asks handing it back to her.

She laughs a little. “No, but it was loud as hell.” She takes it back and bounces it around in her hand. “But I had a brainstorm the other night that if I swapped out the speaker and boosted the resonance, it could make the wave more powerful. Or at least more focused. Think of it as trying to push more sound out of a smaller hole. Does that make sense?”

“Kinda,” John answers. “But what I’m more curious about is why you’re working on it right now.”

She blinks at him, and gives a shrug.

“Is there nothing else you’d rather be doing?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

John heaves a sigh. “Well, when Oliver asked you about the dance the other day, it seemed very much to me like he was asking you on a date.”

She huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, right.” But John just keeps looking at her with a face that screams ‘Are you serious?’ and suddenly Felicity’s heart is beating faster.

“Even if he was,” she starts, shaking her head, “it doesn’t matter. I’m the slayer, I don’t have time for things like dances, or dating, or boyfriends, or –“

“Says who?” John cuts in.

“Says…everything!” Her reply comes out on a breath of frustration.

“Felicity,” John says, moving to sit down beside her, “you’re hiding down here.”

“What? No, I’m not, I’m-“

He interrupts her stilted protests.

“Yes you are,” he says firmly. She looks down at the floor, hoping that by avoiding his gaze she can avoid this conversation. But, really, she knows John better than that.

“Felicity,” he says, his tone gentle and pleading, “I know that this job is an incredible responsibility. I feel it too. I have been your Watcher in every single lifetime, and I’ve seen you give your all every time, without fail. But there’s more to this life, to this world, than vampires and monsters. And we deserve some of that too.”

She looks up at him then. He’s leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs, and when she catches his gaze he says with so much sincerity, “You can have more in your life than just fighting vampires from a basement.”

“What if I make a mistake?” Her voice is small and earnest.

John smiles a little. “Are you talking about slaying vampires or dating Oliver?”

“Both?”

“We all make mistakes Felicity. It doesn’t mean that either of those things isn’t worth doing.”

Felicity takes a moment, she closes her eyes and she breathes deep, and when she comes back to herself, she grabs his hand and gives it a squeeze.

“Thanks, John,” she says.

He squeezes back. “Anytime.”

When she lets go, John sits back, stretching out his legs and crossing his ankles. He folds his big arms over his chest and, with a bit of mischief in his voice he says, “So, let me ask you again. Is there anything else you’d rather be doing right now?”

“Yeah,” she replies with a hint of a smile.

“Then go,” he says, tilting his head towards the stairs.

In one smooth movement, Felicity gets up from her seat, swipes her tech from the table top, and rounds past John. She stops for a second to plant a kiss on his cheek, before grabbing her backpack and bounding up the stairs, John’s soft chuckle sounding behind her.

**

Oliver is having a terrible time. The music is loud, the gym is stuffy, and the high school punch tastes terrible without alcohol in it. Well, Oliver thinks to himself, to be fair, the punch tastes awful even with the alcohol him and Tommy usually sneak in, he just cares about it less when he’s adding a generous amount of vodka. But tonight, he’s not in the mood for booze, or dancing, or people. Mostly, he’s regretting letting Tommy talk him into this.

Oliver hasn’t been back to the foundry since his fight with Felicity. At his most insecure, he wonders if he misread their whole relationship, and she really did just think of him as some irresponsible playboy. The part of him that keeps that possibility alive has also been what’s kept him from going back and talking to her about it. So instead of fighting monsters, Oliver has tried, somewhat, to fit back into his old life. It hasn’t gone very smoothly.

It started that first night when, after storming out of the foundry angry and unsure, he’d hopped in his car and driven over to Tucker’s party. But after only one beer, he’d snuck out again, and found himself wandering until he came across the park where he’d last seen Max, and where he’d staked his first vampire. Almost without thinking, he walked right into the dark space, on the hunt for something to slay. It was weird to think he felt more comfortable walking through the dark brush with only a wooden stake in his pocket than he did in a fancy house full of his drunken friends. But he wasn’t the same person anymore.

For the most part, Oliver has spent the last week just laying low, but even he knows he can’t stay that way forever. So when Tommy suggested he come out to the spring formal, he’d agreed. Maybe, he’d thought, a bit of normalcy would do him good. So far, it hasn’t.

The gym is decked out with cardboard trees and tissue paper flowers, all part of some spring theme he’s paid no attention to. It’s pretty full, with people he recognizes and people he doesn’t flitting back and forth around him. Oliver shucks his jacket and rolls the sleeves of his dark blue button down up to his elbows.

From his spot on the wall, he’s watching people more than he’s interacting with them. He sees Tommy, working the crowd with his usual charm. He’s spotted Laurel more than once, her form fitting orange dress getting her a fair bit of attention. He saw Cisco, sporting a tuxedo t-shirt, and Caitlin in a pretty blue dress, but there was no sign that Felicity had come with them. Despite the awkward way they had left things, he’s disappointed she’s not here. He just…misses her.

“Are you still over here?” Tommy’s voice cuts through the din of the music. He comes up beside Oliver and leans back against the wall next to him. “Are you expecting someone?”

Oliver makes a puzzled face. “What do you mean?”

Tommy slips his hand inside of his jacket and pulls out a metal flask. He takes a swig then points his chin towards the gym’s double doors. “It’s like you’re staking out the front doors over here.”

When Oliver takes a second to really look around him, he notices that Tommy is right, and suddenly Oliver realizes he’s subconsciously put himself in a surveillance position. He laughs a little on the inside. Even if he never slays another vampire, he knows that at least some of his training will probably never leave him.

“I don’t get it man,” says Tommy, taking another swing. “There’s girls, there’s booze,” he shakes the flask in Oliver’s direction, “and you’re over here brooding.”

“I’m not brooding,” he answers automatically.

“Ollie, I’ve known you your entire life and you are most definitely brooding.”

Oliver sighs. “Maybe a little,” he admits, and it feels kind of good to let some truth come out.

“If this is about Laurel –“

Oliver cuts in. “It’s not.” His voice is firm and he hopes it leaves little room for argument.

Tommy eyes him for minute, as if trying to gauge the truth of his words. “Well, if it’s not about Laurel, maybe I should ask her to dance.” There’s an almost hopeful tone in Tommy’s voice, and it isn’t lost on Oliver. He’s pretty sure Tommy’s asking a bigger question. It’s not hard for Oliver to give him an answer.

“If you want to, then I think you should,” Oliver says with nothing but sincerity.

As if on cue the music changes, pulsing dance beats giving way to a slower melody. Couples start to pair off and Tommy’s gaze goes directly to Laurel where she sits on the side lines with her friends. He turns his attention back to Oliver just long enough to give him a smile and a clap on the back, before he moves off in her direction. Despite himself, Oliver smiles a bit too.

Alone again in his stakeout spot, Oliver leans his head back against the wall and crosses his arms. He’s just about to give in to the urge to pull out his phone and count the number of minutes left until he can leave, when the gym door swinging open catches his attention. The figure on the other side hesitates for a second, but then crosses the threshold, and Oliver’s eyes go wide. It’s Felicity.

She takes a few steps towards the crowded dance floor, eyes scanning the room. It’s clear she’s looking for someone, and Oliver swears his heart stops beating. As much as he might want to, he doesn’t go to her. Instead, he keeps his spot along the wall, but his gaze doesn’t waver. He doesn’t think he could take his eyes off of her if he tried.

Her hair is down, a cascade of smooth curls, instead of up in her usual ponytail. Her dress is dark gold with a modest neckline and it shimmers when it catches the light, giving her an almost ethereal feel as she moves. With no sleeves and a hem that ends mid-thigh, Oliver can see plenty of soft skin and toned muscle, and his fingers almost itch to touch her. His hands seem to compensate by sliding his thumb across his forefinger in the nervous habit he’s had for as long as he can remember.

It seems like she searches the room for an eternity, but it’s probably less than half a minute before she finds him across the space, her eyes catching his. She’s not wearing her glasses, and he swears he can see how blue they are across the distance. When she smiles a little and starts making her way over to him, Oliver isn’t sure he’s ever felt happier. He moves towards her too, and they meet in the middle. She has a purse on a long gold chain hanging over one shoulder. She takes it off and sets it on a table filled with empty punch glasses.

“Hi,” she says a little shyly, fingers toying with the hem of her dress.

“Hi,” he answers back, unable to stop the smile that turns up his lips.

“I’m sorry,” she says, like the words were bursting to get out. “I never meant to imply that you didn’t take what we do seriously. I know you do. And you’re good at it. And I know I can count on you. And I’m just…I’m just sorry, for everything.”

Joy wells up in his chest and displaces the doubt that had settled there since their fight. Almost without thinking, he reaches for her hand and gives it a squeeze. And he doesn’t let it go.

“Thank you,” he says, meaning it with everything he has. “I’m sorry too. I’m sorry if I pushed you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t come back. I just…didn’t know if you wanted me there.”

“I wanted you there,” she answers automatically. The implication of that sentence short circuits his brain for a minute, and he can only stare at her in wonder.

“Did you want to dance?” she asks, some of her earlier shyness returning, like she’s not sure what he’ll say. How she thinks he’d answer anything but yes is beyond him.

His response is to tug her hand gently, moving them a few steps closer to the bodies swaying on the dance floor. She follows his lead with a happy expression, and he pulls her in close enough that he can slide his hands to her waist while she wraps hers around his shoulders.

“You’re taller,” he tells her cheekily. They’ve fit their bodies together enough times, training and sparring, that he notices the difference.

“Heels,” she points out with a cheeky smile of her own, and he looks down to notice her black ankle boots.

“You look beautiful,” he tells her, hoping she knows how much he means it.

“Thank you,” she answers. “I borrowed this dress from my mom. It’s the only one I could find that didn’t show too much boob.”

A laugh rumbles Oliver’s chest. The comment is just so _her_ that it makes him ridiculously happy. She smiles back at him, and it lights up her whole face.

“So,” Felicity says as they sway gently with the rhythm, “are you here with someone? Am I making things awkward?”

Oliver shakes his head. “No,” he says, then with sly smile he adds “There was this one girl I tried to ask, but she said she didn’t want to come.”

“Yeah,” she answers, a little sheepishly, “I get that now. And I’m sorry about not understanding sooner. As a couple of people have pointed out, I’ve been kind of hyper focused on this slayer business lately.”

“Well it’s an important part of who you are.”

“Yes,” she says, looking him straight in the eye, “but it’s not all I am.”

Holding her close, heart full to bursting, Oliver can’t think of a better way to describe her. “You, Felicity Smoak,” he says, “are remarkable.”

Eyes sparkling, she answers, “Thank you for remarking on it.”

Oliver isn’t sure who moves first; maybe they move together. Her hands glide up his shoulders, fingertips brushing the skin above his collar, before linking around his neck. His hands slide from her waist to her hips, tightening their hold and pulling her closer. They pause there, but for only a second, before he drops his lips down to hers.

Somewhere, in the back of Oliver’s mind, it registers that they’ve stopped dancing. And at some point, he thinks he notices that the music has changed again, away from the rhythmic slow song and back to a blasting up-tempo beat. But Oliver can’t bring himself to care. Because he’s finally kissing Felicity, and it’s everything.

Together, they lose track of time, and place. They’re oblivious to the raised eyebrows thrown in their direction, the surprised expressions of their friends. They’ve created their own perfect bubble of warmth and happiness and feelings that are oh so amazing, and Oliver never wants to leave.

Suddenly, the gym doors fly open with enough force to send them slamming back into the cinder block walls. Oliver startles, and he pulls back from Felicity in time to see a man in a dark suit with white hair cross over the threshold. Behind him, a few others wait just outside the door, almost twitching with energy. Oliver immediately recognizes them as vampires even though they’re hiding behind their human faces.

“Felicity Smoak!” the man bellows, and Oliver’s blood runs cold. He tries to shield Felicity behind him, but he should know better than to think she’d go for that. She comes to stand beside him, his arm still wrapped around her waist. The look on her face is a mixture of anger and fear.

“Darhk,” she mutters under her breath. And as soon as she says his name, his face snaps to hers, effortlessly picking her out from the crowd.

“I’ve been looking for you Felicity Smoak,” the man, Darhk, continues. Everyone has stopped to stare and Darhk uses his space like a stage, playing to his captive audience. “You’ve been a hard one to track down. But you’ve been wreaking havoc with my undead army and that just has to stop.”

Felicity’s jaw is clenching so hard that Oliver thinks it might break. She stares down Darhk, but she doesn’t make a move. Oliver takes his lead from her.

“Here’s what I’m going to propose,” Darhk says taking a few steps towards her. “You come outside and I’ll leave all these nice people alone. You don’t come outside, this place becomes my personal lunch buffet.” His gaze turns fierce, and even Oliver’s breath hitches. “You have five minutes.”

With that, Darhk turns on his heel and walks confidently to the double doors. Once he crosses back into the night, they slam shut behind him as forcefully as they opened.

For a second, the entire gym is silent. Then the panic starts. People fly to the doors and try to pull them open, but they don’t budge. Others huddle together in corners. More than a few people send shocked and confused looks Felicity’s way, while Cisco and Caitlin make a bee-line in her direction. The gym fills with the din of chaos, but Oliver’s focus is solely on Felicity.

“I’m going out there,” is the first thing she says to him.

“What?” is Oliver’s reaction.

Felicity takes a few steps and reaches for her bag. “If it will keep everybody in here safe, I need to go out there.”

“Then I’m going with you,” he replies.

She shakes her head. “No. You’re the only other person here who knows what’s really going on. If they do come in here, I need you to do what you can.”

Oliver hates this plan, he really does. But he knows she’s right. He has little faith that Damien Darhk or a group of vampires are going to keep their word. Felicity opens up her purse, pulls out a wooden stake and holds it out for him.

“I only have two,” she tells him.

He gently pushes her hand back. “You keep them,” he says. “I’ve got a few in my jacket.”

A look of adoration crosses her face. “You brought stakes to a dance?”

Despite the circumstances, her reaction makes his mouth ticks up into a smile. He gives a little shrug.

“You’re amazing,” she tells him.

“What the hell is happening?” Cisco’s voice cuts into their moment. He skids to a stop beside them, Caitlin close behind.

Felicity turns to them. “I have to go,” is all she says. 

She looks to the door, and Oliver thinks she’s ready to move. But then she turns back to him, grabs his face and surges up to kiss him. It’s urgent, almost desperate, and while Oliver loves every second of it, when she pulls away he can’t help but ask “What was that for?”

“Just in case,” she whispers.

Oliver doesn’t want to think about what’s waiting for her outside that door. That she’s heading out to face that monster scares the crap out of him. But he knows her, knows she’s strong and smart and determined. If anyone can do this, he believes with all of his being that it’s her. Still, he aches when she walks away.

He watches her dodge the crowd. There are a few people at the doors, still trying to force them open. They move when they see her approach. As she steps closer, the doors swing open of their own accord. Felicity stops for a second, and he see her take a breath. Then she squares her shoulders and marches out into the darkness. When the doors swing shut behind her again, the sound hits Oliver like a knife to the gut.

Even after she’s gone it’s harder than it should be to tear his eyes away, but he does. Felicity gave him a job to do, and he’s not going to let her down. He turns to Cisco and Caitlin, they look back at him with scared and confused faces. He’ll get to them, he thinks, but first there’s something he needs to do. He reaches into his pocket for his phone and quickly searches for John’s number. He calls, holding the phone up to his ear waiting for an answer, but all he gets is an endless chorus of ringing. He ends the call with a frustrated grunt and moves to texting instead.

“Please tell me you’re calling the police,” says Cisco.

“This isn’t something the police can handle,” Oliver tells him, not looking up from the screen, “but I am sending for backup.”

No sooner does Oliver hit send than the crash of the doors once again commands his attention. For a fraction of a second, he’s hopeful he’ll see Felicity, but when all he can see is darkness, confusion replaces the hope. Almost without thinking, he takes a step closer, willing his eyes to see what’s out in the shadows. He doesn’t have to wait long before a handful of figures emerge from the night, vampire faces and fangs on full display. Inside the gym someone screams, the vampires charge, and all hell breaks loose.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well gang, we made it. I'm posting the last two chapters together. A big thank you to everyone who took the time to read or comment or leave kudos, you all make my day.

“Shut the doors!” Oliver yells, moving before he finishes the sentence. The gym doors gape open into the darkness and, while Oliver can’t really see what’s on the other side, and handful of vampires have already gotten in. And even one vampire among this group of screaming teenagers is too many.

He darts to where he left his jacket hanging over a folding chair and pulls a wooden stake out of each pocket. Then he charges towards the front of the gym. A vampire runs towards him, attempting to block his path, but Oliver drops slightly and barrels his shoulder into the vamp’s chest, using the momentum to flip him up and over. When the vampire’s back slams into the gym floor, Oliver wastes no time driving a stake into his heart. Then he’s up and moving again, leaving a pile of dust in his wake.

To his left he sees a vampire gripping a screaming girl in a pink dress. The monster is snapping for her neck while she does her best to twist and squirm her way out of his grasp. Oliver comes up behind her attacker and rips him away from the girl, staking him before the vamp even knows what’s happening. He keeps moving.

He slays one more before he makes it to the doors. When he gets there he grabs the one on the left and pushes as hard as it can. A beat later he sees Cisco and Caitlin skid to a stop beside him. Together they work on the right door, trying to force it closed. The doors may be made of thick metal but it’s harder to move them than it should be, and Oliver has no doubt that Darhk is somehow behind that. But they keep pushing and they make some headway. When two of Oliver’s football buddies come and join the fray, the group of them finally accomplishes the task. Together, they hold the doors closed while some force they can’t see tries to press them open from the other side.

“We need something to brace these shut,” Oliver says, raising his voice above the din of chaos around them.

“I’ve got it,” says Caitlin, popping up from her crouch and dashing off, blue chiffon skirt swirling around her legs. She runs to the DJ booth, grabbing a tall, metal microphone stand, before rushing back towards them. She’s just sliding the long, slender stand through the door handles when a scream catches Oliver’s attention.

Leaving the group to handle the doors, Oliver races into the crowd to find a vamp fang deep into the neck of a girl from the cheerleading squad. Without hesitation, Oliver stakes the vamp through the back and catches the girl as she starts to drop towards the floor. He sets her down gently, propping her up against the wall. Instinctually, she presses her hand to her neck, her shaking fingers trying to cover the wound. She’s lost some blood but hopefully not too much. Either way, they need to staunch the bleeding. Before Oliver can even ask, Laurel appears at his side, folding the wrap she had worn with her dress into a neat square. He moves out of the way so she can kneel beside her friend and press the cloth to her neck. “Thank you,” she tells him sincerely. He gives her a quick nod before heading off to check the rest of the gym.

**

As soon as the doors slam shut behind Felicity, she shivers. The darkness of the night, the chill in the air, the eerie silence after the echoing noise of the gym, it shakes her. She certainly doesn’t feel like a slayer superhero at the moment. She tries not to think about how every time she’s faced Darhk in the past, she’s lost.

There’s no sign of where he’s gone, but for some reason, she feels like she knows where to go, and she moves into the dark at a quick pace. Ever since she saw him in the flesh, it’s like her body has become attuned to him, and she feels like she’s being pulled to him in a way that she couldn’t stop if she tried. She wonders if the connection goes both ways.

She makes her way across the football field sure footed. Her boots at least have a sturdy heel, but the pace she’s going means her bag keeps threatening to fall off her shoulder. She takes the chain strap and pulls it over her head, making sure it crosses over her body, but it still jingles and bangs against her hip as she moves. Felicity may not remember everything about her past lives, but she’s fairly certain she’s never gone after Damien Darhk in evening wear before. It wouldn’t have been her first choice, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.

She comes to the end of the field, passing the spot where she killed Cooper without a pause. She sees the edge of the grass, where a metal chain link fence separates the school estate from the woods beyond. One section of the fence has been pulled away from the others, the work of students looking for a way to sneak off campus unnoticed. She stops, blood pounding in her ears, and looks into the darkened trees. Lit only by the mostly full moon, she sees no signs of movement, hears no signs of life, not a cricket or a squirrel or the even the wind through dry leaves. But she knows, without a doubt, that this is where Darhk is waiting for her.

She looks back at the school, so far in the distance that she can barely see it, but she knows that it’s there, can picture what it looks like in her mind with compete clarity. She thinks of her friends, the ones she made within those walls, that she thought she’d hold for a lifetime. She thinks of her mother, how proud she was when Felicity got accepted to Starling Prep, and how much she’s given up to give her daughter this opportunity. She thinks of Oliver, the partner she found in him, and the relationship they’d forged wholly unexpectedly. She thinks about all of it, knowing, in the back of her mind, that it might be the last time.

She takes one last, longing glance behind her, then she turns her attention back to the woods. She moves to the gap in the fence and, evening dress and all, pushes herself through. At this point, Felicity knows the only direction she can go, is forward.

**

Oliver doesn’t stop moving until he’s sure he’s covered the whole space. When he finds nothing but his scared and confused classmates, he finally lets himself come to a stop. The barricaded doors seem to be holding, a fact that brings him a modicum of relief, but not enough for him to let his guard down, not by a longshot. He holsters one wooden stake into the pocket of his trousers, but the other he keeps in hand, just in case.

It doesn’t take long for Cisco and Caitlin to find him. He knows they’re worried about Felicity, he is too. But he really doesn’t know how to explain all of this.

“What the frack is happening?” Cisco asks, his voice pleading for answers. “Who was that guy?”

Oliver heaves a sigh. “It’s a long story,” he answers. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t satisfy Cisco.

“Well what does he want with Felicity?”

“Also a long story,” is Oliver’s equally unsatisfying reply.

“Well, if I didn’t know better, I’d say these guys are vampires,” says Cisco, gesturing to the wooden stake in Oliver’s hand. “And not the sparkly kind, the Nosferatu kind.”

“Well….” Oliver starts, trailing off. Turns out he doesn’t need to finish his thought.

“No way!” says Cisco with an enthusiasm that Oliver can’t say he shares. “Does Felicity know that? I feel she must know that.”

“She knows,” he confirms.

“Is that why they want her?”

Knowing that the questions aren’t going to stop, Oliver cuts to the chase, however improbable it might sound.

“Felicity is an incarnation of the centuries old vampire slayer. And the guy that took her? Darhk? He’s a centuries old vampire.”

For a second, Cisco and Caitlin look at him blankly, and Oliver is positive that they don’t believe him. But then Cisco opens his mouth and says “Well that wasn’t such a long story.”

Oliver looks at him incredulously.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Cisco continues, “I have, like, a million and one questions about her origin story, but I feel that those can wait until we, you know, survive this.”

The sound of breaking glass catches everyone’s attention. Cisco ducks reflexively. “Or don’t,” he adds.

Oliver spins around, searching for the source of the destruction. It takes him a second to notice that one of the high, slim windows at the top of the gym wall has been broken, and arms reach through from the darkness beyond, scrambling for purchase.

“We need to get people out of here,” Oliver tells them, and without hesitation Cisco and Caitlin follow his lead, rounding people up and moving them away from the outer walls. But as much as Oliver knows he has to get everyone to safety, he also knows he can’t go with them. He won’t leave Felicity. When he spots Tommy’s dark hair bounding through the crowd, Oliver knows what to do.

“Tommy!” he shouts, jogging over to his friend. Tommy looks at him with a mixture of relief, confusion, and fear.

“Ollie!” Tommy says in reply, “What the –“ But Oliver cuts him off. He grabs Tommy’s shoulders and looks him straight in the eye.

“The boy’s locker room has a fire exit. I need you to lead everybody there. Do you think you can handle that?”

Tommy’s face shows his surprise and confusion, but Oliver’s no nonsense tone must strike a chord because instead of questioning, Tommy just nods his head.

“Once you’re out, get as far away from here as possible,” Oliver continues. “Don’t come back in. Do you understand? ”

Tommy’s mouth gapes open for a second before he answers. “Yeah. But, what about you?”

“I need to find Felicity,” he says. Then he gives Tommy’s shoulder a squeeze and adds, “And you need to go.”

Oliver starts to move away, but he can see Tommy’s hesitance, can sense the myriad of questions swirling in his brain. With a shake of his head, Tommy breaths out “Ollie, what’s going on? How do you know all this?”

Some part of Oliver’s brain, the part that he is trying his hardest to keep under wraps, registers just how dangerous this whole situation is, how this could be the end of all of them. It might be his last chance to tell Tommy the truth. And while he doesn’t have time for the whole story, he feels the need to offer his friend something while he can.

“This is what I’ve been doing,” he tells Tommy, counting on their years of friendship to help fill in what he means. “This is what’s changed things.” And Oliver can see the second his words register with his friend by the way his eyes go a bit wide and his mouth falls open.

It’s on the tip of Tommy’s tongue to start asking more questions, Oliver can tell. But there really isn’t time right now, so he cuts in. “I’ll explain everything to you, I promise. But you have to get them out of here first. Ok?”

“Ok,” Tommy replies with a nod, and it’s his turn to clap Oliver on the shoulder and give a quick squeeze, before he turns away shouting “Ok people! Let’s go! This way!”

It’s with a great big mix of emotions that Oliver watches him go.

**

Felicity has never been in these woods before, which is unsurprising since skipping school had never seriously crossed her mind and she isn’t the explore nature type. But somehow, in these shadowed, unfamiliar trees, the path leading to Damien Darhk is abundantly clear. Still, it’s a bit of a surprise when she spots him. He’s in a clearing, shiny black shoes sinking into soft moss, waiting for her almost casually.

She slows her pace, treading as lightly as she can, as she opens the clasp on her purse and slips her hand inside. In this quiet space, she wonders if she could sneak up on him, tries to map out in her mind how it would work.

“I know you’re there,” Darhk tells her, his voice making her start. “Now that I’ve seen your face, now that I know your name, you couldn’t hide from me if you tried.”

“Goes both ways,” Felicity answers, stepping into the clearing, hoping she exudes a confidence she doesn’t necessarily feel. But she knows she’s right. She’s tuned to his frequency now, her instincts pulling her in his direction, whether she wants them to or not.

“True,” he concedes, “but, given our track record, I don’t feel all that worried. How many times have I killed you now?”

Felicity grits her teeth. He’s beaten her more times than she knows, but she can’t think about that now. This is a new life, a new chance to win. That’s what she has to focus on. The hand inside her bag grips the wooden stake and brings it out in the open.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Darhk scoffs, trying to rile her up. He pushes his black coat aside and unsheathes an ornate silver dagger that Felicity recognizes instantly from her dreams.

“Mine’s bigger,” he mocks coldly.

For a moment frozen in time, neither of them moves, like they stand on opposite sides of a great divide. Every battle they’ve ever had flits across her memory. Every person she used to be, every place he terrorized, everyone she couldn’t save; it all comes in this moment and disappears just as quickly. This is her fate. It always has been. 

They move at the same time, rushing forward, ready for battle. They meet in the middle of the clearing, moonlight illuminating them with an other-worldly glow. Darhk swings his dagger in a wide arc. She ducks his reach then kicks forward, hitting mid chest. The blow knocks him back a step but he doesn’t go down, and he lashes out again with his blade. She dodges twice, the rush of air moving past her face telling her his strikes were too close for comfort, before she has the chance to strike again.

Together they dance, steps they’ve repeated through dozens of lifetimes, across the world. She misses more blows than she lands but, thankfully, he does too. Finally, she lands a left hook to his jaw that spins his head back, buying her a second of time. As quickly as she can, she raises her stake and aims for his heart, but he grabs her arm before she can make the plunge. He looks back at her with a chilling smile.

“You’ve got some fight,” he tells her, “I’ll give you that. But it won’t make a difference. I always win.”

This time when he pushes her back it’s with more than just his strength. Felicity can feel the strange force of his magic shoving her away. Her back hits the ground and, for a second, he looms over her, before she manages to roll away. She’s scrambling to get to her feet again when she feels the hardness of his shoe against the back of her knee, buckling her leg and knocking her face down into the moss. He’s on her before she can move again, pinning her hips down with his and bracing his arm against her shoulder blades.

“Now,” he says, sitting on her back, holding her against the forest floor, “how should we do it? Straight through the back?”

Felicity can’t move, she can’t see him, but she knows, somehow, that he holds the dagger over her back, poised to slip through her ribs and into her heart.

“Or maybe…” without warning her grips her hair and pulls her head back, forcing her neck to arch. The dagger glints in the moonlight beside her jaw. “…I slit your throat.”

Felicity squeezes her eyes shut.

“What will it be,” he taunts, his tone chilling, “slayer?”

Felicity registers the heavy footsteps only seconds before the hit. And it takes her another instant to realize that she’s free to Darhk’s weight. She jumps to her feet and looks around with an almost frantic energy.

At first, he’s just a figure of black, perched on the ground. Then she recognizes the leather jacket and broad shoulders of John Diggle and she chokes a sob of relief. He’s got Darhk on the ground, and she understands now that John must have barreled into him as he held her down. One arm is swinging, strong punches aimed at Darhk and, from the sound of it, at least some of them are meeting their mark. But then, without warning, John’s large frame hurtles backwards. With blood trickling from his brow and leaves stuck to his crisp, black suit, Darhk rises to his feet. His arm is outstretched and there is rage in his eyes when he bellows “Stay out of this, Watcher!”

With a powerful burst of magic, John is thrown again, branches snapping as he flies through the brush. When he hits a tree trunk, he goes down hard. And he doesn’t get up.

**

Oliver corrals everyone he can to follow Tommy out of the gym. Soon, the big space is clear, save for him, Cisco, Caitlin, and the smashed remnants of their party.

“You guys need to go,” Oliver says, looking to Felicity’s friends.

“Not a chance,” says Caitlin. “Not without Felicity.”

Oliver shakes his head. “You don’t understand,” he starts, but Caitlin cuts him off.

“I understand that Felicity went out there to protect us. But we’re not going to let her face this guy alone any more than you are. We care for her too.”

It’s on the tip of Oliver’s tongue to argue, but there isn’t time. He also gets the distinct impression that it wouldn’t do any good anyway. Felicity’s friends are as dedicated to her as he is.

“You’ll need these then,” he tells them instead, handing over his two wooden stakes. Gingerly, they reach out to take them.

“Oh, cool!” Cisco says, face breaking into a smile. Oliver shoots him a look. “I mean, awful,” he covers, trying to school his features back to seriousness.

Oliver takes a few steps over to a wooden folding chair that has been knocked over in the fray. He grabs the frame, raises it over his head, and smashes it into the floor. A couple of the legs break off nicely with pointed, jagged ends. He grabs them, testing their weight in his hands.

“We’ll head out the main doors,” he tells them, “distract any vamps that might try to go after the group headed out on the other side. Stay behind me. If any of them get close to you, aim for the heart, don’t hesitate. Once we’re sure the coast is clear, we’ll start looking for Felicity.”

His voice leaves no room for argument, and he gets none. Instead Cisco and Caitlin give him sharp nods and determined expressions.

They open the doors cautiously. Oliver knows there’s at least a few of them out there and he’d prefer to get the drop on them. They find four, all of which Oliver stakes without much trouble. Then all seems quiet.

“Where’s Felicity?” Caitlin asks with some alarm. She scans the darkness but, like the rest of them, she sees nothing.

“I don’t know,” Oliver says. And for a moment, he feels as lost as she does. But then he remembers something that has him fumbling through is pockets.

“We can track her phone,” he says, pulling out his own. “Felicity created a program. I just have to…” he trails off, staring at the screen, trying to piece together what Felicity had told him. But technology isn’t really his thing, not like it is hers, and it doesn’t come easy.

“Let me see,” says Cisco, holding out his hand. Oliver passes it over and in half a minute, Cisco’s got an answer.

“This way,” he says, and they take off in a run.

**

“John!” Felicity screams in shock and concern. When John doesn’t move, doesn’t even stir, her stomach drops. She wants to run to him, but she knows she can’t. Her battle isn’t over.

She whips her head in Darhk’s direction and finds herself seething with anger. It bubbles up inside her and, when it starts to spill over, Felicity can’t help herself. With an actual roar, she charges at him.

She fights with brute force and little finesse. She stabs and lashes and kicks and, when her hits do land, they do damage, bloodying his lip, pushing him back. But there’s one advantage Darhk has always had over her, one that she’s never learned to fight against. His magic. As soon as Darhk has an opening, a split second reprieve, he calls up his magic and shoves her away with a force that she can’t defy. As the invisible wall pushes her back, her feet come off the ground and she flies through the air until her back his the rough bark of a tree trunk.

Darhk holds her there, feet off the ground, and she watches him approach. His face is angry but smug, and his arm is outstretched, his hand directing the magic that keeps her suspended. With a narrowing of his eyes and a slight curl of his fingers, Felicity feels a force tighten around her throat, and suddenly, she’s struggling for breath.

She gasps for air, a terrible, strangled sound coming out of her mouth. Her feet kick the air in vain as she tries to move but can’t. She knows, no matter how hard she tries, there’s no escaping his hold as long as his magic is aimed at her. With dizziness closing in around her, she slips a hand into the purse sitting at her hip. When her fingers curl around what she’s looking for, she uses her diminishing strength to lift it out, and hit the button.

The shriek of Cisco’s Sonic Boom echoes across the clearing, making her flinch. But Darhk, who wasn’t expecting the piercing noise and is getting the brunt of the soundwave, turns away reflexively and covers his ears. The second his hand moves away from her, his magic stops, and she drops ungracefully to the ground, panting for breath. She’s lost her grip on the Sonic Boom, and it sits out of her reach, casing open and parts spilling out.

It takes her a bit to recover from her near strangling, and by the time she does, Darhk’s recovered too. There’s more rage colouring his face than she thinks she’s ever seen and this time, it’s him who charges.

**

They’re standing the woods when they hear it, an ear piercing screech that stops Oliver in his tracks.

“What the hell was that?” he exclaims.

“My Sonic Boom!” Cisco says with some excitement. “Felicity must have it.”

Oliver has no idea what Cisco’s talking about, but if it means that Felicity is near, that’s good enough for him. He keeps moving, pushing through the dark brush as quickly as he can. When he sees the clearing, his heart stops.

The fight is furious and fast and Oliver swears he can see the wrath in Darhk’s eyes. Felicity, her gold dress and blond hair shining in the moonlight, is fighting back hard, but he can see an exhaustion creeping in to her face and the wounds of battle on her body.

Oliver doesn’t know what to do. He can’t defeat Darhk, he understands that, but the urge to help her is so strong he can barely contain it. And when he sees Felicity slip and fall, he can’t hold himself back.

Without thinking, Oliver rushes into the clearing and jumps onto Darkh’s back. In the distraction, Felicity manages to get to her feet again, but Darhk’s surprise doesn’t last for long and Oliver soon finds himself slamming hard into the dirt.

“What is with the peanut gallery today?!” Darhk grits out in anger, gaze shifting between Oliver and Felicity as if he can’t decide who he’s madder at. When Felicity tries to move, Darhk raises up his hand and she’s stopped in her tracks.

“First I’m going to kill him,” Darhk growls, swinging his head in Oliver’s direction, “then I’m going to kill you,” he directs to Felicity who’s fruitlessly struggling against his invisible hold.

Oliver is out of ideas. At his most hopeful, he can imagine that he’s bought Felicity enough time to win this somehow, but he’s pretty sure that he won’t be getting out of this alive. Maybe neither of them will.

Across the space, his eyes seek hers. She looks scared and, somehow, he knows it’s for him. But he’s not sorry, not for any of it. He ticks his lips up into a smile, hoping she understands.

Suddenly, the deafening noise of the Sonic Boom rings out in the clearing. Oliver flinches and covers his ears and so, he notices, does Darhk.

Darhk struggles against the noise, his hold on Felicity lost. Past them, Oliver sees Cisco holding the small device in his hand, aiming it square at Darhk. Darhk’s face twists in pain and anger as he tries to make headway against the sonic force, but Cisco only gets closer, directing more of the noise against the vampire. Distracted and on his knees, Felicity sees her chance. She lunges at Darhk and her stake hits its mark, piercing his chest while he looks at her bewildered.

Cisco turns off the device and Caitlin emerges from the shadows, daring to take a few hesitant steps closer. Still on his knees, blackness dribbles from Darhk’s mouth and runs down his face like ink. His eyes are wide and he struggles to breathe.

“Well that was unexpected,” he gasps out.

They surround Darhk in the quiet clearing, Oliver, Felicity, Cisco and Caitlin. They only watch him struggle for another moment before Felicity spins around and kicks the stake deeper into his chest. Before their eyes, Darhk’s body changes from a tangible thing to a cloud of black smoke drifting aimlessly in the wind.


	12. Chapter 12

Felicity hates the way hospitals smell. She always has. And the lights are too harsh and the chairs are uncomfortable and, wherever you are, you can always hear the beep of some machine. Ok, so Felicity hates a lot of things about hospitals.

As if sensing her discomfort, Oliver’s arm tightens around her even more, and she definitely takes the opportunity to press herself into his side and soak in his warmth. He drops a kiss onto her incredibly tangled hair.

After Felicity had staked Darhk, she stood there for a moment in the moon lit clearing, absolutely stunned. She had done it. She had won. The truth of it was almost too much to process. But then her brain kicked in again and she raced over to John, to where he had fallen and hadn’t moved. Red and blue lights were flashing in the distance, cutting through the dark even in the track of woods.

“Someone must have called the police,” Cisco commented, and he and Caitlin said they’d go for help. Felicity stayed with John, her breath coming easier once she realized he was breathing too.

Now that she has time to sit, Felicity starts to notice her own injuries. Her knees are scraped, her ribs are tender, and her throat aches from Darhk’s attempted strangulation, giving her voice a hoarseness she isn’t fond of. She also knows she looks like a hot mess, with dirt streaking her skin, twigs in her hair and her dress torn in more than one place.

“I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to my mom,” she muses, toying with the tattered hem of her dirt stained dress.

“Maybe you should tell her the truth,” Oliver suggests gently.

She tenses a little, the thought amazing and terrifying all at once.

“With all that happened tonight, with all that could have happened, I think it’s something you should think about,” he says, thumb stroking soothing patterns on the bare skin of her arm. “Besides,” he adds, “Cisco and Caitlin took it well.”

As if on cue, Felicity spots her friends at the end of the hall, the pair moving towards them with paper coffee cups in hand. Felicity gives Caitlin a smile as she hands her a cup, the warmth seeping through to her palm. They settle into their own uncomfortable plastic chairs.

“Any news?” Caitlin asks.

Felicity shakes her head.

“So you’ve really known John in past lives?” Cisco asks, his fascination with this new subject apparent. Felicity can’t really blame him. Her life now is like sci-fi and fantasy come true, and Cisco is an enthusiast.

“Yup,” she answers, “but I don’t remember everything about them.”

“But you’ve been a vampire slayer? In all of them?”

“Yeah,” she says. “And I’ve faced Darhk in every single one. But I’ve never beaten him before. Not until tonight. And that,” she looks to all of them, “is because of all of you.”

“Using that sonic device was brilliant Cisco,” Oliver says to him.

Cisco smiles but shakes his head. “Felicity used it first,” he says, “I just found it and put the pieces back together. Nice mods by the way,” he directs to Felicity.

“You built it Cisco,” she replies, “and it saved my life. So thank you. Thank all of you. I wouldn’t be here if you all hadn’t been so brave.” As she says the words, her heart swells. She’s lucky to have them. And she’ll never forget it.

“And I was right,” Cisco says, taking a swing of his coffee. “You were having a secret romance with Oliver Queen.”

Oliver barks out a laugh and, despite herself, Felicity blushes a little. “Not until recently,” she says, slightly flustered. “The romance part anyway. Well, this kind of romance. Not that there weren’t feelings before, and sweaty chin ups, and the occasional shirtless encounter. Not _that_ kind of encounter,” she rushes to add, unable, it seems, to stop her runaway mouth. “It’s just –“

The rumble of a laugh in Oliver’s chest and the kiss he presses to the top of her head finally settle her enough stop talking and take a breath. “They get it,” Oliver assures her.

A chirp rings out, and the sound of the old-school Starfleet communicator pins it as Caitlin’s phone. She pulls it out of her purse and says, “My mom’s here to take us home.”

She stands, still in blue chiffon and silvery heels. Cisco stands too.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright here?” Caitlin asks her.

Felicity nods, and she stands to hug her friends goodbye.

“I’m sure,” she says. “Go home, get some sleep.”

As her friends walk off down the hall, Felicity settles herself back into her seat, and back into Oliver’s side. Pressed up against him, surrounded by his warmth, his scent, is quickly becoming her new favourite place. They sit together in comfortable silence until a tall woman with a stethoscope comes out of a room down the hall.

“You’re here for John Diggle?” she asks, and Felicity jumps to her feet.

“Yes,” she says, anxiety rising in her chest. Oliver comes to stand beside her.

“He’s resting now. You can go in and see him.”

“Thank you,” she answers, turning to Oliver as the doctor walks away.

“You go,” Oliver says, as if reading her thoughts. With all that her and John have been through, in this lifetime and in others, she needs this time with him. And she’s amazingly grateful that Oliver seems to understand that.

“I’ll be right here when you’re done,” he says.

Felicity moves the few steps to John’s hospital room. The door creaks when she pushes it, the dim light inside a welcome change to the florescent lighting of the halls. John, in a green hospital gown with a bandage on his head and one arm in a sling tight to his chest, smiles when he sees her.

“Hi,” she says, coming to the side of his bed. She takes his free hand and gives it a squeeze.

“Hi,” he answers, squeezing back. “You did it,” he tells her in a voice swelling with pride.

“We did it,” she corrects him. “If it wasn’t for you, and Cisco, and Caitlin, and Oliver, I wouldn’t be here.”

“None of us would be here,” John revises. “If we had lost, Darhk would have killed us all.”

“But we didn’t,” she points out.

“No, we didn’t,” he responds, unable to keep the smile from his face. “And maybe that was the difference this time. Before, it was always just me and you, keeping everybody else on the outside. The lore might have said that you had to be the one to kill Darhk, but it never said you had to do it alone. Maybe a team was what we needed all along.”

“Maybe,” she agrees, a smile creeping on to her face as well. Together, they take a moment to savor their victory.

“So, is that it?” she asks, finally giving voice to the question that’s been bouncing around her brain for the last couple of hours. “Are there no more vampires?”

John shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t work like that. There’ll still be work to do, vampires to slay. But it doesn’t have to be _all_ you do.”

The creak of the hospital room door catches their attention, and Felicity looks over to see a striking woman with short brown hair come in and close the door behind her.

“You must be Felicity,” the woman says, coming over to stand on the other side of John’s bed. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Uh…thanks?” is her graceful reply.

John chuckles under his breath.

“Felicity,” he says, “this is my wife, Lyla.”

“Oh!” she says, surprise colouring her voice and her expression. John squeezes her hand again to get her attention.

“We can have a normal life,” he tells her. “We _deserve_ a normal life. Just…with a little something extra.”

When Felicity leaves John’s room, she feels different. She feels free, and hopeful, in a way that she hasn’t since her world was turned upside down. She walks back to Oliver and he rises when he sees her approach.

“How is he?” Oliver asks.

“Broken arm, probable concussion, but healing. He’ll be fine.”

“Good news,” he answers, grabbing her hand.

“It is,” she agrees.

“So,” Oliver starts with a bit of hesitance, “what happens now?”

“Now,” she answers, taking a breath, “I’m planning to finish high school, go to college, and slay any vampires I find along the way. And I thought that, maybe, we could do those things together…”

When Oliver’s eyes light up, Felicity can’t keep the smile off her face. He raises their joined hands to his lips and plants a kiss on her knuckles.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he tells her with a smile of his own.

When they leave the hospital, hand in hand, the sun is just coming up over the horizon. Oliver opens the passenger door of his Porsche and settles her inside before sliding into the driver’s seat. When she looks at him, his face full of adoration, her heart soars. This might not be where she had thought her life was headed, but she can’t say she minds the detour.

With one last kiss across the console, Oliver starts the engine. Together, they drive into the sunrise.


End file.
